Whispering Your Name
by xX-Misty
Summary: Sequel to Strangers When We Meet: Too torn to choose between Gene and Molly, Alex's soul splits in two. But when the two halves awaken the wrong way round two lost, confused Alexes must decide who they can trust and how to get home. Note: Rating is now M
1. Prologue: Overture

**Prologue**

If the eyes were the window to the soul then why was no one bothering to peer into Alex's and realise how scared she was?

At first it had just been confusion; not knowing where she was, scarcely remembering what had happened. The shock of being unable to more or speak had shaken her too. But then, as the doctors spoke, less and less started to make sense.

_"__… we will need to run a number of tests and to check you over during the rest of the day, but right now your daughter is here. Would you like to see her?"_

Alex hadn't understood the question. She'd thought that she had misheard and waited for a while in the hope that the doctor would correct his mistake or repeat his words and reveal that he'd said something else entirely. But once again he asked her if she wanted to see her daughter.

Alex tried to express that there was a mistake somewhere along the lines. She hoped that the look in her eyes was enough to show that the doctor must be confusing her with someone else but he carried on looking at her, waiting for her to respond. Since she only had a choice of offering one blink for yes or two for no, the answer had to be no.

She had no children. The doctor was mixing her up with someone else. Children weren't something that she and Gene had ever truly discussed, although right then she couldn't even really remember why. The closest she'd come was having a pregnancy scare when she thought she was suffering from morning sickness that turned out to be caused by Gene insisting the two-week old lasagne was still edible the night before.

But the more the doctor insisted her daughter was there, the more scared she became. Where was _Gene? _Why wasn't he there? Wouldn't he have been waiting by her side? She looked around, desperately hoping to see him standing nearby but there was no sign of him - at least not within her narrow field of vision.

By the time the doctors had finished prodding and poking her they finally left her alone with her confusion as the sun was rising.

"I'll put the television on for you, dear," a kindly nurse told her, "Give you a little stimulation." She aimed the remote at the screen to switch the set on, then put it back down and left the room.

The television set itself struck Alex as strange. It looked flat, two-dimensional. Perhaps her eyes hadn't adjusted yet, she thought.

As the picture became clear she tried to focus on what she was watching. Pictures of fireworks exploding in the sky, drunken revellers and people dancing filled the screen.

"…_And finally," _a newsreader concluded, _"thousands of people last night celebrated the new year in style with fireworks and lavish celebrations down by the River Thames. Despite the merriment police reported no problems during the celebrations and two thousand and eleven has gotten off to a peaceful start."_

The words that Alex heard flowing from the screen to her ears made her heart jolt so severely that she thought some one might come rushing in to check the cardiac activity on the monitors. She felt sick suddenly. It was like Gene's two week old lasagne all over again. For a few moments she thought that it had to be a TV drama, a look at the future, but soon enough the news bulletin ended and an ident for a channel that didn't exist came on before announcing a television programme that she'd never heard of.

She felt more tears come into her eyes. The confusion was giving way to fear and isolation. Where was Gene? Where the _hell_ was he?

All she could do was close her eyes. Close her eyes and hope that - when she opened them - this strange place would be a distant memory and she would be back home with Gene by her side.

~xXx~

As she opened her eyes she could hear his voice again; the voice of that man she didn't know. The one who'd made her promises about the future, a future that she couldn't understand or make head nor tail of. The room swam a little but after blinking a few times she could focus on his face.

_Who the hell are you and why are you here?_

She wanted to ask him what the hell he thought he was doing. You don't just wander into a hospital and start making a move on the first comatose patient you see! She desperately wanted to regain her ability to speak. She wanted to scream for a doctor, tell them to get the stranger out of her room and to bring her daughter to her side.

Where was Molly? Was she OK? She remembered Evan taking her home. Had no one called him and informed him of her condition?

"_You back with me again, Bolly?"_

The voice was clear and definite. An accent she couldn't quite place yet but definitely not local. What the hell was he calling her? Did he mean _Molly? _

She tried to tell him she wasn't Molly, to ask where Molly _was_, but she couldn't move her lips. The only thing that happened was a slight gurgle emerging from her vocal chords. That much was enough to get her unknown visitor excited and send him rushing to fetch a doctor.

She closed her eyes in anguish. All she wanted was her daughter, her precious little girl. Why was no one bringing her in? Why was no one telling her if Molly was coming to see her or not? A tear slipped from her eye and rolled down her cheek onto the soft, white pillow in the dimly lit room. Despite a stranger who professed his love for her and spoke to her with affection she had never felt so scared and so very much alone.

~xXx~

My name is DI Alex Drake. - + - My name is DCI Alex Drake.

I've just been shot - + - I've just been shot

And that bullet has taken me back - + - And that bullet has taken me forward

To 1995 - + - To 2011

Is it real - + - Is it real

Or in my mind? - + - Or in my mind?

All I know is I need to fight - + - All I know is I need to fight

To get home - + - To get home

To get back to Molly - + - To get back to Gene

And the life that I've lost - + - And the life that I've lost

Because I'm lost, scared - + - Because I'm lost, scared

and all on my own. - + - and all on my own.

Who can I trust? - + - Who can I trust?

I only hope I can - + - I only hope I can

make the right decision - + - make the right decision

And find my way back to 2011 - + - And find my way back to 1995

Before my time runs out - + - Before my time runs out

And I lose Molly - + - And I lose Gene

Forever - + - Forever


	2. Chapter 1, 2011: Glissando

**Chapter One; 2011**

Staring at the light on the ceiling made Alex's vision blur and swim a little. As she closed her eyes again she could see trails of coloured lights that left a pattern across her sight. She couldn't really do much except stare at that bright light. It was either that or focus on the TV set and that brought home to her the ridiculous notion of 2011.

_2011? _That would mean a 16 year coma, not a 2 and a half year one. And there was no way in hell she'd been out for 16 years. Besides, the doctors had said very clearly two and a half years. They'd told her this information repeatedly, almost like a news bulletin on the hour, every hour. Perhaps they thought she was likely to forget? Some chance of that when all she could think about was the _New Year _announcement and the date that made no sense.

"Alex? It's time for your bed bath."

Oh joy of joys! The ultimate in humiliating hospital amusements! It wasn't as though she felt she particularly needed a bath of _any _kind. How was she going to work up a sweat in her state of total paralysis? Olympic-style speed blinking?

She hated the thought of anyone undressing her, anyone seeing her so helpless and vulnerable. Because if there two things that Alex Drake definitely wasn't, those things were helpless and vulnerable. She was strong and tough, strong enough to have survived no end of dangerous situations. Strong enough to have made it to being appointed DCI at Fenchurch East. She didn't need rescuing from anything or any one.

Apart, it seemed, from her own mind.

She closed her eyes as the nurse or whoever was attending to her opened up her hospital gown and began to gently wash her body. If she'd gained back any strength or ability to move her body then she would have been flinching and reeling away from the act. As it was, the only thing she had was a two-word blinking code and the nurse hadn't even asked her a question yet so that was no help at all..

She hated the thought of anyone seeing her body. As confident as she was in her general day-to-day appearance, beneath her classy get-up and outward confidence she had marks; battle scars. A bullet here, a knife wound there. Life had become increasingly dangerous and she'd picked up more war wounds as time passed by.

She rarely confronted them. The only person who ever saw them was Gene and she somehow felt completely comfortable with him seeing every inch of her just as it was, although he had obvious issues with one certain scar upon her stomach. Out of respect for Gene and the guilt he couldn't put out of his mind she tried to cover that one up as much as she possibly could.

She was getting older and she was ok with that. She wasn't doing badly on it. A few more fine lines around the eyes, maybe the odd grey hair, a few extra pounds where Gene's obsession with the variety of snacks in Latte Land and reliance on convenience foods had taken their toll. She wasn't doing badly but it wasn't as though she went around parading her flesh to all and sundry in a bikini or hot pants. She knew Gene loved every inch of her body exactly the way it was so she didn't get hung up about any of those matters. But now someone was washing in all her nooks and crannies she felt horribly aware that all the little things she perceived as flaws were on show.

She kept her eyes closed to block out the humiliation of the bed bath . She mentally breathed a sigh of relief as it finished and heard the nurse telling her that she was about to refasten her smock. Was she going to have to go through that every day? She couldn't stand the thought of that.

When was she going to be able to move or talk again? She felt trapped, like a pair of eyes peering out from inside a dark, stiff, immovable box. She began to wish - and not for the first time - that she could slip back into the comatose state from which she'd come and let everything fade away until she found herself back home.

~xXx~

The message on his answer phone had been a complete shock to Robin that morning, but then again it had been a time of surprise in general. Reeling from his letter from Simon, the visit from Kim and the one-word plea Alex had hissed when she'd awoken the day before , Robin felt as mixed up as a smoothie in a blender. The message from Evan had just about knocked him sideways.

For a New Year's Day there were a surprising amount of places open in the town. Certainly enough places to buy a bunch of flowers. He considered grapes too but seeing as Alex wouldn't be able eat normally for some time he thought that would be more like taking the piss and stuck with the flowers instead.

He arrived at the hospital and made his way to the room he'd visited so many times in the last few weeks, but this time he knew his visit would be different. This time the woman in the bed would have open eyes and be able to understand him. In one way he actually felt a little pang of sadness about Alex's awakening. With her consciousness back in the present day there was no link left with Simon and 1995. He felt incredibly guilty for thinking such a thing and would never have wished any the less for Alex after the fight she had put up to get home to Molly but now that his last link had gone he felt set adrift from his love and the time they'd shared on the past.

He saw a doctor and a nurse standing outside the room and approached them.

"Can I see Alex?" he asked.

The doctor looked a little wary.

"You're here to see Alex Drake?" he asked. Robin nodded.

"Evan White let me know she had woken up in the night," he explained.

"Right," the doctor spoke slowly, "it's just… She's finding it very draining at the moment. Just waking up has exhausted her. She wasn't even ready to see her daughter earlier."

Robin hesitated. That didn't seen very likely.

"Are you sure?" he asked.

The doctor nodded.

"She is able to move her only her eyes at the moment," he explained, "with patients in this situation we can ask them to express yes with one blink and no with two. She wasn't ready to see her daughter so I don't think she will want to see people outside the family unit either."

Robin still thought her behaviour sounded strange. Perhaps she didn't want Molly to be scared?

"Even so, can you at least ask?" he asked hopefully, "if she doesn't want to see me I'll leave, but I need to thank her for something. I'd really like to see her."

The doctor still looked doubtful but the nurse interjected.

"This is the gentleman who was visiting Alex when she went into cardiac arrest yesterday," she said, "He had a bit of a shock. I think it would be good for him to be able to see her_. If _she's ready."

The doctor gave a sigh. It seemed the only way he was going to get any peace.

"Alright," he conceded, "I will ask her. But if she's not ready to see you there's nothing I can do."

"That's fine, that's fine," Robin said quickly.

The doctor nodded.

"Alright," he said, "and your name is-?"

"Robin," said Robin, "Robin Thomas." he hesitated, glancing a the ring on his finger. His surname could have been different by now. He wished that he'd had the chance for his surname to change along with his marital status. He would never have the chance to marry Simon now, but he could at least make one change to keep him in his life. "Actually, that's Robin Shoebury-Thomas."

The doctor frowned.

"Any other names you want to change before I go and ask her? You don't want to add any strange middle names like Flossie or Froopot or Keegan or anything?"

Robin frowned.

"That's a bit unnecessary isn't it?" he commented.

The doctor didn't respond. He wanted to get the inevitable declination over with and get the strange man with the ever-changing name out of the way. He walked into Alex's room and towered over her with a sigh.

"Alex," he began, "there is a gentleman here who's like to see you. Now, I understand you are not feeling up to visitors so if you would prefer not to see him that's fine. Remember, blink once for yes and twice for no. His name is Robin."

_Robin!_

_Oh, finally, someone familiar!_

The relief Alex felt at a name she recognised was overwhelming. She knew Robin… remembered working with him to catch Nailer… she remembered him as Simon's boyfriend… she had a strange feeling he'd stopped working with them recently. Had he transferred? She couldn't quite recall. But he was _there!_ Surely he could help her get the message to Gene, to tell him where she was and that she desperately needed to see him.

_Blink._

One very definite, deliberate and eager blink.

The doctor seemed a little confused and hesitated.

"Are you sure?" he asked, "you weren't up to visitors earlier."

_Blink._

Certain, sure, determined. That blink couldn't be denied.

The doctor still seemed a little hesitant.

"Well, alright," he said, "but I don't want you getting worn out so he can have five minutes. OK?"

_Blink._

The doctor disappeared from her narrow field of vision and the room went quiet except for the TV still playing away over the other side of the room. She almost held her breath. The anticipation was immense. For the first time since waking in this strange place she was about to see a familiar face and one who was sure to pass on the news that Gene was on his way.

"Alex?"

Alex had rarely heard a voice so timid and nervous. She watched as Robin slowly came into her view. He looked a little different to the way she remembered him, his stubble a little longer than it used to be, his skin pale and drained, his cheeks sinking inward just a touch where grief and anxiety had sucked away his appetite and the pounds had started to fade away. There were telling, dark circles under his eyes and a little heaviness where the alcohol he wasn't used to from the night before had left him to see in the new year with a thumping headache.

"Oh my god, Alex, you're really awake!" he breathed.

She saw a smile spread across his face and change his appearance completely. She tried to smile back. Well, she _did_ smile back, but as her lips were not co-operating yet she hoped that smiling with her eyes was enough.

"Oh my _god," _he whispered again as he sank into a chair beside her, "I can't believe it. Oh, Simon would have been _so_ happy to see you open your eyes."

_Would have been?_ Alex thought in confusion, _why wouldn't he now? Have I upset him?_

"Look, that power-crazy doc is going to throw me out in two minutes…"

_He told me five!_ Alex thought, _the sneaky git!_

"…so I'll get right to the point. Yesterday… when you told me to live…"

That did it. Suddenly Alex's moment of familiarity in a confusing world vanished. If she'd been in a coma for two and a half years then how could she have told Robin to live? And why? Why would he have needed that advice in the first place?

"You saved me from something… something unspeakable. I got a message from the past last night. It explained everything. It explained about Keats."

_Keats. That__'s the bastard who shot me! He just fired his gun all around the room and one of those bullets hit me!_

"…and if you hadn't done what you did I would have been dead by now," Robin continued, "I can never thank you enough for that." Robin glanced around, only too aware of the doctor scowling at him from the doorway. It was making him feel almightily uncomfortable. "Look, I think I'd better go before he tries to jam a bedpan up my backside. I just came to say thank you and," he got to his feet, gave Alex a friendly kiss on the head and laid the flowers beside her bed, "and to give you these." He glanced at the doctor again who was tapping his foot and checking his watch like Sonic the Hedgehog, "I'll be back soon"

He marched to the door and said crossly, "Alright! I get the hint! I'm going!"

Alex stared ahead as she listened to Robin's footsteps disappearing down the corridor. The first hint of familiarity she'd had since her eyes opened and all he'd brought were more questions and confusion. She closed her eyes again, desperate to express the anguish building inside of her. There was a terrible dread building in the pit of her stomach. It ached and churned as she tried to make sense of what was going on. She knew something was wrong - very wrong - and she couldn't even open her mouth to beg for answers.

She felt herself beginning to drift away for a while, a blissful sleep overtaking her momentarily, but the relief was all too short. She awoke moments later to the sound of a nurse coming into her room and announcing brightly,

"Guess who's here to see you, Alex?" she saw the nurse appear before her. "Molly's here!"

Alex felt a cold sensation fill her body. _Molly. _That was the name of the daughter they'd insisted she had. That was the name of some poor girl who thought her mother had awoken from a coma. Must be one of the other patients. Perhaps in one of the other rooms. _That poor girl._

"I'll bring your daughter in to see you," the nurse said brightly.

_Blink blink._

She firmly blinked twice for no. _No._ She did not agree to this.

But either the nurse didn't see or was ignoring her.

"Come on in, Molly," Alex heard her say.

_Blink! Blink!_

But still the nurse paid no attention.

Alex closed her eyes as tears began to fall.

_She__'s forgotten the code. I said no. I don't want this. I don't understand._

Alex closed her eyes to try to block out the young girl running to her with cries of love, joy and excitement. It made no sense to her. She had no children and whoever this girl was she knew she was very gravely mistaken.

_I__'m not your mother. I'm not your mother. I feel so lost and scared. Please, someone take this away from me…_

The sobs of joy and words from the voice of the girl who celebrated her awakening killed Alex's heart inside of her. This was so hard. So very hard and heartbreaking. Through sheer desperation she forced herself into a deep sleep to push the voice of the teenager away. When she woke up again the girl would be gone. But the confusion and the anguish would remain. Of that, she was certain.


	3. Chapter 1, 1995: Elegy

**Chapter One; 1995**

"Time for your bed bath, Alex."

The stranger by her bed raised an eyebrow excitedly.

"You want a hand with that?" he asked.

The nurse politely but firmly declined and insisted he left the room.

"_Patient privacy," _she told him.

"Nothing I haven't fondled a hundred times before," the man mumbled dejectedly as he left the room.

Alex closed her eyes in relief as he disappeared into the corridor. To say she was terrified would be an understatement. She had no idea who the stranger was for a start but he'd been rotating between declarations of love and lewd remarks about what he intended to do with her in the back of his car ever since she woke up.

She urgently wanted to scream, to beg the nurse to remove the man from the hospital. His attention was unwanted.

"That's a pretty ring."

Alex couldn't move her head to see what the nurse was talking about. Was she wearing a ring when she left home that morning? She couldn't remember. A little sensation was coming back into her body now and the feeling of the nurse removing the ring to wash her hand and arm struck her as a little strange. It was on a very specific finger. Her wedding ring finger. How long had it been since she'd worn her wedding ring? She couldn't remember but she felt certain there wouldn't be a ring on there now for any reason.

She closed her eyes and suffered the indignity of the bed bath. It could have been worse, she thought. She had no hang-ups about her body. She was in pretty good shape and had no embarrassing hidden tattoos to worry about. But even so, she felt like a muddy car getting hosed down on a Saturday morning.

"You're a lucky girl," the nurse told her, "your fiancé obviously loves you very much."

A sudden bolt of nausea struck Alex deep inside. The nurse clearly didn't know what she was talking about. She tied to tell her so but only managed to make a low growl with her vocal chords.

"He seems very attentive," the nurse continued.

Alex closed her eyes and tied to look at the situation from a logical point of view. _OK, go back to the last thing you remember. Layton. Molly. Evan. Down by the river. In the car. Taken hostage. A bullet in the head. _

So where was she? Was she hallucinating? Was she in a coma? She recalled the tapes of Sam Tyler, listening to his tales of going back in time and all that he had been through. Could her head have conjured up a similar scenario? It was a possibility, except that she had '_woken up'. _She'd been told this as a fact. She was in hospital with a gunshot wound to the head. She had been though surgery to remove it. In fact, everything about the situation seemed logical and realistic for recovery following a cranial gunshot wound.

Except for _that man_. The stranger who wanted to do unmentionable things to her with his gear stick.

And the lack of Molly.

"Have you set a date for the wedding?" asked the nurse, not caring that Alex wasn't actually able to answer the question, "I think May is a lovely time for a wedding. All that lovely blossom on the trees."

Alex wished she would shut up. The bed bath was humiliating enough. Now she was silently humouring the woman about some imaginary wedding and blossom that would send the wedding guests sneezing into their champagne.

"You going to change your name, Alex? The nurse wondered, "Alex Hunt? Sounds snappy."

Alex's eyes darted to one side to try to get as close a look at the nurse as possible. There was something about that name. It was something familiar but she couldn't quite place it. _Hunt_. Why did that sound so familiar? She tried to run through her memory but she was tired and confused. Was it a colleague? A television character? A member of a musical group? One of her old school chums?

The nurse finished up the bed bath and began to cover Alex back up with her nasty hospital smock that boasted the fact it was property of the NHS. She gave Alex a warm and friendly smile and, with that, she said _the words_; the sentence that would change Alex's life forever, the ones that would strike her dumb with confusion, fear and anguish.

"I'll tell Gene he can come back in now."

_Gene._

Gene Hunt.

That was why it sounded familiar. The name Sam Tyler's tapes brought up time and again. The one he'd met during his coma. The man who had antagonised and irritated him. The man who had taught and inspired him. The man he seemed to like and loathe in equal measures.

The man Sam's words painted such a clear description of. The man she had tried to resolve as being some element of Sam's psyche that his coma had brought to the surface. The one she'd spent countless hours trying to form spider diagrams about to put some clarity to the real reason behind Sam's apparent suicide.

And now, here he was, coming back into her hospital room to sit and whisper sweet nothings into her ear while simultaneously making comments that would have him in front of a tribunal within seconds of them leaving his mouth.

She watched him coming every closer, taking note of all the features Sam had spoken of. She could scarcely believe what she was seeing. Her mind had recreated him _exactly_ as Sam had described. What _was_ this? Some kind of copycat psychosis? Or perhaps her mind punishing her for not being able to adequately answer the question of why Sam did what he did.

Either way, her reconstruction of the mysterious misogynist was edging closer. She noticed for the first time that a second man had entered the room with him; a taller man with a black eye and a couple of cuts and bruises. Who was _that? _Another patient?

"Bols, Simon's 'ere to check up on you."

_Simon? _Alex mentally ran through all of the other names in Sam's notes. There was an Annie, a Chris, a Ray… not a Simon. Where had he come from? Must be a part of her own psyche, she thought. She remembered the local milkman was called Simon when she was a kid. He smelt of potatoes. But he was in his late fifties and had as much facial hair as Santa Claus so she didn't think that was the person who had entered her "hallucination". But who he _was_, she had no idea.

"Alex," he seemed pleased enough to see her with the warm smile he offered and the friendly kiss he placed on her head, "I just wanted to say hi while I was here. I came to see Gene but I wanted to check you were doing OK."

_Doing OK? _That wasn't exactly the way she would describe her situation, but he had no way of telling him so.

"I have to…. have to say thank you," Simon began, "for what you did for Robin yesterday."

_Robin? _Alex tried to work out if she knew a Robin. There was a robin that used to perch on the ledge outside the kitchen window during the winter. Probably not the same Robin that this stranger was talking to her about.

"I got a message," he continued, "I don't know how it happened, but it did. He's going to be OK, and it's thanks to you. You stopped him from making a grave mistake." He flinched at his choice of words. "You know what I mean."

_No I don__'t! _she thought to herself, _I don't have a clue! I'm not really here… where AM I? Have I gone back in time too? Like Sam?_

"I'm just going to steal Gene away for a few minutes, need him to sign some papers for me, I won't keep him for long," he paused, "and when you are feeling stronger maybe you can help me persuade him that television shows involving three-course meals are actually a really good idea." He gave her another warm smile and turned to leave.

Gene leaned in close. She could smell pickles on his breath as though he'd consumed half of the local branch of McDonalds that morning.

"Just got to go sign Shoebury's life away," he told her, "but I'll be back. Keep that bed warm for me."

With that he turned and followed Simon to the door. She heard snippets of their conversation as they left.

"_You sure you don't mind doing this?"_

"_I don't mind signing yer bloody pole vault…"_

"_Deed poll."_

"…_I'm just pissed off because I will have to re-think me collection of Shoebury jokes."_

Alex closed her eyes as the voices disappeared. She didn't know whether to laugh or cry - not that she was in a position to do either. Layton's bullet had sent her into a world of her mind's creation and somehow Sam's words had filtered so far into her subconscious that she'd inserted the figure of Gene Hunt as some kind of_… significant other. _She wanted to shake her head in disbelief at her own brain. She knew she could figure a way out of this situation. All she needed was some time. Some strength and some time.

Slipping into sleep as the anxiety of the morning overcame her, she held onto that notion. Perhaps when she awoke she'd have that strength to work through this. She's have the energy she needed to work out how to find her way home. She was certain of that.

It was like 1981 all over again - without the fur coat.


	4. Chapter 2, 2011: Dissonance

**Chapter Two: 2011**

As she awoke the following day, Alex felt a little strange. After slipping in and out of sleep for the rest of New Year's Day, awakening on the second of January she found a little sensation returning to her body. She could feel the roughness of the NHS sheets against her skin, the sensation of the air around her face and even the hint of an itch on her cheek.

She tried experimentally to move. Her lips twitched just a fraction and her tongue moved from side to side. She tried to exact moment through the rest of her body but it wasn't really listening.

_Oh well,_ she thought, _one step at a time. This is progress. Focus on that._

She tried to move something smaller and managed, she thought, to wiggle a toe just a fraction. The effort exhausted her but it was still more than she'd had the day before.

Just as she was working her way up to attempting to move a finger, a smiling nurse came into her room.

"Alex, I've got some good news for you," she said, "the doctors are delighted with your progress so far and if you continue to make steps forward you could be into a regular ward within a week! Isn't that great?"

Alex just blinked.

_Well, I don__'t know,_ she thought, _That depends. Is a regular ward one located in nineteen ninety FIVE?_

"And you've got a visitor too!" the nurse told her, "Evan is here."

_Evan?_

Alex knew Evan.

Solicitor, wasn't he? Worked with the Prices a lot. The Prices… who were they again? She felt like the answer was on the edge of her mind but she couldn't quite pinpoint it. Still, at least she knew Evan and a familiar face would be a relief.

Although… she had to question why Evan had come to see her. It had been many years since their working association and…

She cringed.

There had been a little bit of something else bubbling under between them too, hadn't there? She felt her cheeks flush with embarrassment. Was there a bit of flirtation going on there? She had a vague memory…. Oh no, what was he _doing_ here? She recalled him briefly representing a dealer they'd caught just a little while ago. Nailer. She'd sent someone else to attend the interview so that she wouldn't have to see Evan. Was _that_ why? Had she felt too embarrassed to face him? She vaguely remembered calling him gorgeous at one point, many years ago.

_This is it,_ she thought, _the bullet didn't kill me but the shame will!_

She waited nervously as the nurse went to fetch him. What was he doing there? Surely not wishing to look into igniting a faint spark from years before? Maybe he'd become one of those compensation lawyers and was going to try to get her to sue Keats for shooting her?

"Alex."

As soon as she heard Evan's voice the relief of the familiar tone took over from any embarrassment she was feeling. Just hearing someone that she knew, a voice that she recognised, it gave her back a little speck of hope.

Evan loomed large over her suddenly. Time had not been kind to him. The young handsome man she'd once met was now overgrown with grey hairs and the onset of wrinkles.

"I didn't think I would ever see your eyes open again." Evan's eyes glistened with tears which confused Alex. It had been years, so many years since they'd last met. Why was he there? Why was he so emotional?

"I can't stay for long, I've been warned that you need a lot of rest at the moment," Evan continued, "but I hope you know how desperately we've all been praying for you to wake up. There have been some very hairy moments. Your heart stopped more than once. And then the incident with Keats…"

_Keats._ That was a name Alex knew well. What had he done now? It didn't surprise her that the bullet in her head hadn't been the end of the matter.

"I'll be honest with you. I have up hope. But luckily you had friends like Simon and Robin to remind Molly and myself how strong you were."

_Simon__… where WAS Simon? _Robin had been in to visit her - but where was _Simon? _

"You don't need to worry about a thing," Evan assured her, "as soon as you're ready to come home I'll take care of you, just like I always have."

_Whoompff. _There is was again. A sentence out the blue that pulled the rug out from underneath her and sent her tumbling to the floor in bewilderment.

Why was Evan going to look after her? Where was Gene? Where the _hell_ was Gene?

Pulling together every drop of strength and energy in her body she tried to call for him, to yell his name. Inside her head she screamed _'Gene!'_ over and over but her mouth and vocal chords turned it into something almost unrecognisable.

"_Geeee…" _she tried to get her point across, "Geeeee…"

Evan peered a little closer.

"Alex?" he breathed.

"_Geeee…"_

Evan's face reflected sheer surprise. With a gasp he ran from the room calling for a nurse or a doctor and a few moments later returned with a tall woman in a white coat. She seemed excited by whatever Evan had told her.

"Hello, Alex!" she smiled, "Your friend tells me you're finding your voice!"

"_Geeeeee," _Alex tried again. She closed her eyes with frustration. She just couldn't get that 'N' sound in the middle.

"What's that?" the doctor leaned closer.

"_Geeeeee."_

"Jeep?" Evan guessed.

"Was the man who shot her driving a Jeep?" the doctor suggested.

"Not as far as I'm aware."

"_Geeeeeee…"_

"Green?"

_Oh, come ON!__"_ Alex's mind was screaming the words her mouth couldn't express, _why can't they understand?_

"_Geee… Geee… Geee…" _she spoke a little more quickly now, _"Geee…" _she managed to slowly move her head a slight touch from side to side.

"Alright, Alex, alright, keep calm," the doctor began.

"What's the matter?" Evan felt alarmed by her actions.

"Try to calm down," the doctor said. She checked the monitors and began to feel alarmed, "Alex - Alex, listen to me, you _must _calm down."

An alarm started to sound somewhere as Alex's body began to twitch and tremble all over and Evan started to back away. The sight of Alex in distress cut through his heart like a knife.

"What's happening to her?" he cried.

A couple of doctors and nurses rushed into the room ad started muttering to each other with an occasional cry of something medical and urgent. Evan looked on, paralysed with fear. Finally, a nurse turned to him as Alex's inherent cries became louder and said,

"We're just going to give her a sedative to relax her."

"Why? What's happening? Why is she getting so fraught?" Evan looked on anxiously. "Why is no one answering me?"

As a needle full of something soothing plunged into the cannula in Alex's hand and soon her desperate sounds faded away as she slipped into a medically induced stupor again. Evan breathed deeply as he watched her eyes close and saw her become still and silent again. What he'd seen scared him deeply inside. After two and a half years of waiting, Alex's return to the land of the living wasn't going the way he and Molly had dreamed of.

"Come outside, sir," one of the doctors tried to usher him into the corridor, "this is just a precaution after the cardiac episodes she's experienced during her coma. We just need to keep her calm…"

As Evan found himself escorted away the now-sleeping Alex fell into a deep and darkened slumber. While the drugs in her system should have brought to her a perfectly dreamless state, her strength of mind and will began to overpower them and through her sleep memories began to burst through as dreams.

"_Alex."_

A face on a TV screen. On a million TV screens, all peering down at her.

She knew that face. Oh, how she wished she didn't. The spectacles perched on his nose brought her full attention to his eyes. His deep and captivating eyes, framed by glass and wire.

"_Look what he's done to you. You don't know me, but I read all about you. You're the best of them, Alex. It's not fair. He did this to you, and I don't want history to repeat itself. I don't want you to end up like…"_

_BANG! _Bullet in the head. Eyes open, wide awake.

Alex could feel her heart thumping away at a terrifying pace inside her chest. That face had been oh so familiar; the stare of Jim Keats was not easily forgotten. His presence in her dream disturbed her. Se remembered him as the man who had fired the bullet into her head. She remembered him for all the many terrible things he had done, the pain he'd inflicted upon people she cared about, but there were startling gaps in her memory.

When had she first met him? She couldn't recall. When had he started to interfere in their lives? She knew it had been many years ago and he had plagued them on and off ever since but his arrival into their lives remained a mystery to her.

What the hell were all these gaps in her memory? Where had they come from? She knew so clearly who she was, she knew her life inside and out but there were worrying question marks over some of the things she should have known and couldn't remember.

What was missing? Was she blocking something out? Was there more to her life before the bullet hit her that she couldn't recall?

She almost succumbed to tears but then an enormous wave of inner strength overrode it and welled up inside of her like fire. She realised something as she looked at the clock in her field of vision. Barely half an hour had passed since she'd been given the injection. She was fairly sure whatever they gave her should have knocked her out for some time.

With focus and determination she could overcome the medication that was supposed to be keeping a rein on her body and mind. That was the kind of strength she knew she had. The kind of strength that no amount of bed baths, confusion or travelling forward in time could take away from her.

As she flexed her toes and saw the bed clothes move as her foot twitched below them she closed her eyes and let a tear of relief and joy escape. Those wiggling toes were just the fist step. She knew she had a long way to go but if she worked on it, little by little, and kept up her mental strength hen she would get back the control she needed over her body to get up, get out and go looking for the answers to all the questions that no one seemed to be listening to.

DCI Alex Drake did not succumb to the control of anyone or anything, not nightmares about Jim Keats, not needles full of medication to knock her out cold, not waking up in some other time at the mercy of a year she didn't know.

Wigging her toes for a second time she felt certain inside that this was the start of finding Gene and all the others she knew wouldn't have deserted her. She had a deep, dark sense of foreboding that there were answers she wouldn't want to hear but nevertheless she knew she had to pursue them.

She owed it to herself.


	5. Chapter 2, 1995: Etude

**Chapter Two: 1995**

Waking up in the morning, Alex observed that the day before seemed like a strange dream. She had slipped in and out of consciousness, sometimes with a strange man waffling on about bed baths beside her, sometimes without. She'd slept well through the night, aside from one nurse shoving a thermometer in an unmentionable place at four in the morning, and now that the next day had arrived it felt as though some of the mists had started to clear.

The day before had been a dream. A strange, fevered hallucination brought on by her surgery and head trauma. That was it. It had to be. She was fairly sure of that. Today she felt so much more normal and had even started to get back some movement in her body. Today would be the day that Evan would bring Molly to her bedside and she would be able to hug her, hold her tightly and let this strange nightmare fade into the background.

"Good morning, Bolly."

_Oh shit._

No, that wasn't right. The dream was over. She was back in the real world, surely! She felt so _real_ now, so lucid. She couldn't still be in some bloody Sam Tyler-inspired psychosis! And yet the evidence suggested otherwise: Gene Hunt, looming large in the doorway, a flask in one hand and a polystyrene cup in the other. He made his way across to her bed and sat down beside her.

"I hope I'm in time for today's bed bath," he commented.

_Oh joy of joys! _Gene Hunt _and_ a bed bath! This was going to be one hell of a day! And to think, a moment or two earlier she felt so hopeful and so certain she was back home. Perhaps she was a little deeper inside her own head than she realised.

She turned her head slightly toward Gene. That very action got him so excited that he spilled latte all over the floor and swore profusely as he mopped it up with a _property of the NHS_ smock beside the bed. She was feeling a lot stronger today, more in charge of her limbs and more able to take charge of the situation. She tried to recall as much as she could from Sam's tapes and notes. She could find her way out of this just as Sam had initially. She just had to focus and concentrate. Get her thoughts together and allow her sense of logic to lead the way.

Slowly she opened her mouth and prepared her vocal chords for the pivotal moment ahead. Excited by the sight of her wanting to speak, Gene finished mopping up the latte and drew closer to the bed.

"What is it, Bols?" he asked, "got some words o' comfort for the Gene Genie?"

Alex closed her eyes for a moment. Then she asked Gene for the one thing she wanted, the thing that she desired above all else at that very moment.

"_Notepad."_

~xXx~

Simon felt something weighing heavily in his chest as he arrived at work that morning. It took him a few minutes to realise what it was. It was the reality of getting used to life without Robin. The last couple of days had been full of distractions to keep his mind occupied but now, on the drive to work, the reality was starting to sink in.

He felt cold in bed the night before; alone, lonely, stranded. The only thing sharing his bedroom now was a pair of noisy guinea pigs. He was glad that he at least had Kim staying for a few nights, despite her nicotine withdrawal and aversion to viewing his Red Dwarf collection. Aside from her lack of interest in quality sci-fi they had a few things in common, not least of all the blindingly obvious. Simon remembered how hard it was having no one who understood during his first trip to Gene's world. Kim had been going through about five or six months of that. He was grateful they could at least confide in each other.

His mind was searching for something to keep it occupied, to try to get over the loneliness that the Robin-shaped hole in his life had left. Since Gene had already scuppered his plans for a CID version of _Come Dine With Me _he tried to think of other TV shows he could adapt. Just as he was considering pitching the idea of locking Terry Poirot and Bammo in a house filled with cameras he reached CID to find Gene looking distant and troubled. The last Simon had seen of him the day before had been a buoyant Gene filled with hope for the future as Alex had awoken. This was a different Gene.

"What's happened?" he asked quickly.

Gene looked up at him, a glass of scotch in his hands.

"Drake said two words to me today," he said.

Instantly Simon felt a burst of excitement at the thought of Alex recuperating

"That's brilliant!" he cried, "… unless… they weren't _'fuck off', _were they?"

Gene stared into his drink.

"They might as well have been" he said, "the first thing she asked for was a bloody notebook."

Simon frowned.

"A notebook? What for?"

Gene shrugged.

"No idea," he sighed.

"And the second thing?"

"Her second word was _'Molly'_," Gene told him.

Simon sank onto a desk and stared at Gene. OK, so Alex's words weren't exactly declarations of love and affection but what did Gene expect?

"She just woke up from surgery to remove a bullet from her head," he reminded him, "She's not going to be reciting sonnets."

"I know, I know," Gene shook his head, "It's just that she…" he trailed off. "It doesn't matter." He looked at Simon. "Anyway, why have you got a face like a row of arses?"

Simon thought that description was a little extreme.

"Sorry for darkening your doorstep," he mumbled, getting to his feet.

Gene rolled his eyes.

"Shoebury." He watched Simon glance around. "Sit down." With a moment of hesitation Simon decided that being insulted by Gene was slightly preferable to finding Vickery in his office, whining on about something or other and sat back down. "Now do you want to tell me what's got your knickers in a twist or do I have to prise it out of you with a shoehorn?"

"Thought you wouldn't make shoe jokes ay my expense any more," Simon said half-heartedly.

"You made the fatal mistake of leaving the 'Shoebury' bit in yer new name," Gene reminded him.

Simon sighed.

"I'll get a new deed poll," he joked but his heart wasn't in it."

"So what is it then?" Gene asked, "Metal Mickey still refusing yer offer of a Red Dwarf marathon?"

Simon sighed deeply.

"She _did_ threaten to pierce my nipples if I came within twenty meters of the video recorder," he said, "but no, that's not it."

"Spill it then, Shoe-Boy."

Simon stared at the floor. He didn't really want to go into it.

"Just struck me, that's all," he said quietly, "I'm on my own, forever."

"You're being a bit morbid today" Gene observed, "is this because I rebuffed yer offer of recreating twenty-first century TV shows in CID?"

"No, it's not."

Gene looked at Simon. He knew what was wrong but didn't know what to say. He felt bad to admit it but all he could think was how glad he was that Alex had stayed with him. He came very close to being in Simon's place.

"Look, Shoebury," he began, "it's not ideal. I know that. Until the time comes… until you get 'im back… you just have to do your job."

"That's not a very supportive point of view," Simon mumbled

"Cruel to be kind," said Gene, "You got to pull yourself together and remember you're just one man, Simon. There are people here relying on you. You're here to help them. You have a post to develop, a job, a team. So Vickery makes you want to vomit custard. Join the club - we've al had one of those," he took a sip of scotch. "You were one o' mine, first time round, you know."

Simon let his breath out slowly. He knew Gene was right. That didn't stop him from feeling damn well miserable about his own life though.

"Thanks, Gene," he said quietly getting to his feet again.

"Where are you going?" Gene asked.

Simon looked back.

"To vomit custard," he said, and trailed away to find Vickery.

~xXx~

Alex knew things were heading in the right direction.

That was a start.

She had been able to enjoy some peace and quiet for some time that afternoon. Her requests for Molly and a notebook seemed to have frightened away "Gene" for a little while, leaving her to think about her situation.

While the radio by her bed annoyingly blurted out the Mike Flowers Pops version of Wonderwall she was able to focus her thoughts on the situation at hand. OK, so she was in some kind of coma. Of that she was fairly certain. Her thoughts that fateful morning had been on Layton, Molly and Sam Tyler's file. So the Sam Tyler thing… that accounted for the part of her subconscious that had brought up a Gene Hunt Relationship Scenario. He obviously wasn't that important if she'd borrowed from someone else's psychosis. Saving energy for the really important things. That made sense.

OK, so what else was there? Molly. She needed to get home to her. That was the most important thing she needed to focus on. That was a given.

What did that leave?

Layton. Arthur Layton.

Of course. He put her there, now she had to find him and set that demon to rest so that she could break free from her coma and get home to Molly. Where was she anyway? Or more to the point, _when_ was she? How was it significant? The music on the radio went some way to filling in the blanks as _Wonderwall_ ended and _Earth Song _began. OK, so logically the end of 1995 seemed pretty likely. What happened in 1995 in her own life? What was significant about it? Was she back in that year for a reason?

The thinking was exhausting her. She felt drained and exhausted. It felt likely that sleep was going to consume her again before too long. As she felt it overtaking her she told herself firmly that tomorrow she would focus on Arthur Layton. He was her key to getting home, she was certain. If she focused all her strength and mental energy on that one thing she would be able to get back home, to Molly and Evan and to her own life. If she was lucky she could wake up in 2008 and be watching some Russell Brand show on E4 by bedtime.

That was her final thought as she drifted off.

~x~

She awoke some time later after a full-on nightmare about Arthur Layton kidnapping Russell Brand, holding a gun to his head and then succumbing to Russell's charm. Just as Russell saddled up Layton like a horse and rode away into the sunset, she thankfully awoke from her dream and decided thinking about various comedians in her current state of reduced mental capacity was not necessarily a good idea.

A shadow caught her eye at the doorway and her eyes darted over in time to see a dark haired man in a long coat hesitate just for a second, then pass on by. The moment made her shudder although she didn't know why. Something about the stranger disturbed her.

She filed it to the back of her mind, along with Layton and Russell Brand. It was time for sleep. _Proper_ sleep. And in the morning maybe she would be well enough to make those lists she needed her notepad for. That would be the next step to getting strong and finding her way home to Molly and the life she longed for.

**~xXx~**

_**A/N - That is based on a genuine nightmare I had a few weeks ago! If I had to suffer it, so does Alex!**_

_**Thank you so much for all the alerts and reviews - I really appreciate it. The tone of this story is likely to be darker than the first three in the series and the rating may change later on, but I hope that you will stick with it and enjoy it. Even though the tone might be darker there's still going to be humour throughout!**_

_**Thank you for reading so far! x**_


	6. Chapter 3, 2011: Polytonality

**Chapter Three: 2011**

For the last 24 hours, Alex had been practicing. Only when there was no one around, she practiced moving her toes and fingers, then moved onto twitching her hands and feet. She practiced speaking, letting her mouth form the words that were so difficult to come by and letting her vocal chords grow stronger with every sound she made. She could now express words of one syllable with high clarity. The difficulty was following them up with a second syllable or further words as she needed a few moments of rest in between them. She was just glad she wouldn't be called upon to make a speech for any reason. Not unless she found herself nominated for the _Coma Victim of the Year_ award and scooped the prize.

"Bedbath time!"

_Goody, my favourite time of the day,_ Alex thought sarcastically but she decided to be polite and raise the sides of her mouth by millimetres into a tiny smile. She thought it was best to at least try to keep the hospital staff on side. She knew that her 'turn' the other day had put them all on red alert and she was tired of their constant monitoring and tiptoeing around her.

As the nurse began to open up her hospital gown she gathered up her strength and her energy, pulled together everything she'd been practicing and said as clearly as she could;

"_Gene."_

"Pardon?" the nurse asked.

Alex took a deep breath and steeled herself for saying it again.

"_Gene."_

"Oh no, dear," the nurse frowned, "you won't be able to wear jeans for quite some time yet. But your friend Evan brought you in some nightclothes, you should be able to wear your own very soon. Maybe tomorrow."

Alex closed her eyes and gave a sigh too quiet for the nurse to identify. Her frustration at not only being misunderstood but at not knowing where Gene was had started to become an increasing source of anger inside of her. She tried to gather her energy for another attempt at speaking.

"Where…" a long pause for rest, "Gene?"

"No, no wearing jeans," the nurse said absently, washing Alex's arms, "just nightclothes."

_Damnit! _

Alex wished the nurse would forget about clothes for a moment. That almost made her smile as she thought for a moment about how Gene would probably comment that he wished _Alex _would 'forget her clothes' too. She closed her eyes for a second and tried to block out the rest of the bed bath as the embarrassment started growing again. After a while she heard the nurse start to speak.

"Alex, are you ready for some visitors, do you think?"

Alex's eyes opened again. That depended. That depended greatly.

"Wh-who?" she asked quietly.

"Your daughter and Evan would like to see you," the nurse said with a smile, "Molly hasn't been able to see you for a couple of days. And Evan is worried about you after yesterday. Are you ready for a visit?"

Alex closed her eyes again. Those were not the names she had been hoping for. She swallowed, her mouth dry.

"No," she whispered.

The nurse hesitated.

"Are you sure, Alex?" she asked, "you've been doing so much better since your 'episode'. They're hoping to see you and make sure you are alright."

Alex tried to shake her head but managed only to move it a fraction from side to side.

"No," she said firmly.

The nurse gave a sigh and could hardly mask her exasperation. She had seen them sitting by Alex's bed for hours on end in the last couple of years. How could Alex not wish to see them? What was that going to do to the daughter and godfather who had shown her do much devotion and love?

"Alex," she began quietly, "I really think it would be good for you to see them."

"_No!"_ Alex's voice was strong and urgent this time, It caused the nurse to back away a little. She looked at Alex cautiously as she finished but the bed bath then asked quietly,

"Is there anyone… _anyone _at all you want to see?"

Alex wanted to say Gene again but couldn't face a third round of fashion advice. Instead she thought about the only other person who had paid her a visit, the one familiar face she'd seen. But, _damnit_ - Robin was a two syllable word. That was going to prove trickier.

"_Ro…." _she began, taking a deep breath, _"…bin."_

But the nurse had forgotten the first part of the word by the time Alex got to the second.

"Bin?" she frowned, glanced around and pointed to a space near the door, "that's the rubbish bin, the sharps bin is just next to me, see?" she smiled patronisingly at her "But don't worry, you won't need to use the bins for some time - just let us take care of you while you begin to get your strength back."

Alex felt like screaming as the nurse walked away and left her mumbling one -syllable insults under her breath. It was lucky that that was all most of them needed because she had quite a selection to play with.

"Fuck!"

~xXx~

The ringing of the doorbell surprised Robin. He hadn't been expecting it. He was even more surprised to find Evan standing outside. Even though they were supposed to be meeting to discuss the case against him regarding his driving and Simon's death he'd assumed that Evan would be busy with Alex.

"Evan," he said, slightly taken aback "I'm sorry, I wasn' t expecting you."

Evan checked his watch.

"We did say two o clock?" he asked.

"Yes… no, I mean," Robin tried to gather his thoughts, "I assumed you'd be busy with Alex." he noticed a dark cloud fall upon Evan as he spoke. "Oh…. Oh God, what's happened?" He felt his heart bunching up like a fist in his chest. Recalling the flurry of panic around Alex as she flat-lined while he stood beside her just three days earlier, he began to think the worst.

"She had a little… _turn_ yesterday" Evan put it as simply as he could.

"What sort of a 'turn'?" Robin asked nervously.

"I paid her a visit in the morning" Evan said awkwardly, "she began to get a little… overexcited. She found she was unable to make herself understood when she tried to say something and her heart… well, the monitors detected a problem. The doctors sedated her quickly and she's alright now. But she has refused to see me today." His face reflected a mixture of emotions; sadness, anxiety, even a little bit of anger tucked away in there too. "She doesn't seem to want visitors today. The doctors thought I should give her another couple of days before I take Molly in to visit her again, just to allow her time to acclimatise."

Robin exhaled loudly. While he was relieved that Alex was alright the words Evan had shared made him feel anxious for her condition. It Didn't sound like her progress was going very well.

"Shit," he whispered, "Man, I'm sorry. I'm sure she'll be desperate to see you and Molly in a couple of days. She must be in a state from waking after so long."

"I know" Even looked down, "but it's difficult to see her that way."

Robin nodded slowly.

"I'm glad you warned me," he said quietly, "I was hoping to visit her later."

"Yes, that's not a very good idea," Evan told him, "if she can't handle family then it will be a while until she is up to friends visiting her."

Robin nodded sadly. He had been anxious to see her again.

"I suppose you're right, he said quietly.

Evan carefully adopted a neutral expression. He didn't want to think about his any longer. All he wanted to do was to concentrate on his work and ensure Robin's path to being a free man was as straightforward as possible.

"Well now," he began, taking a deep breath "shall we begin?"

Robin gave a tiny smile as he stepped back to allow Evan in. There was something about his words and the thought of Alex's response to his visit that disturbed him. He couldn't put his finger on it but something felt wrong. Reluctantly he tried to put it out of his mind. He knew that focusing on the case was important and he valued Evan's help and time. He only wished that he could forget the nagging worries lurking in the back of his mind.

~xXx~

A day of practicing, a day of foot-wiggling and word-forming, a day of tiny steps forward that were born of her sheer determination. Alex was exhausted by the time the evening came around but she knew she was moving in the right direction. She had worked her way up to two-syllable words now. True, so far most of them had been 'Bollocks' but at least she was able to increase her scope of cursing.

As she closed her eyes and fell asleep she felt so drained that she was certain there would be no energy left for dreams or nightmares.

But she was wrong.

"_Hi - DCI Jim Keats, Discipline and Complaints. Can we take a walk, mate?" _

like a bolt out of the blue, there he was again. And she remembered it now; the very first meeting. The first time she saw him. There he was lurking, waiting in Gene's office, in forbidden ground. The door that opened, the strange feeling in the air, that look - _that_ look.

Like a bolt of static changing the station on the TV, Alex found the scene of her dream changing.

Luigi's; _ohhhhh, _Luigi's…. A place she knew so well. Oh, how she missed Luigi's. It didn't matter how many new restaurants, how many new bars, how many coffee shops full of lattes and snacks they'd tried, Luigi's would always have a place in Alex's heart that nothing else could quite overtake.

And there he was again. _Keats. _Jim Keats.

"_Look at that - my watch stopped at nine-o-six exactly."_

BOOM!

Like someone closing the lid on a coffin, the jolt shook her awake in an instant. Alex's eyes opened wide and she awoke with a heavy feeling in her chest. She panted hard, trying to draw in the oxygen her body needed to recover from the nightmares that her mind had thrown her way. Her eyes turned to the clock, just to make sure. Ten twenty-three. Not nine-oh-six. That caused her to close her eyes and give a gasp of relief by itself. She realised that she was moving her head a little easier now; more movement was coming to her almost with every passing moment. The thumping of her heart echoed in her ears like an atmospheric soundtrack in a movie. She could scarcely believe how much those few snippets of the dream had shaken her.

_9:06? _What did that even _mean? _Why did it scare her so? Why had she developed so many memory gaps? It was almost as though her mind was trying to protect her from something, something so big that, if she knew the truth, she might not be able to cope.

For some time all she could do was lay, to stare at the ceiling, to feel the weird sensation of her heart returning to normal inside her chest, beating out a calm and smooth rhythm again. They were just dreams. _Only dreams. _That's what she told herself, again and again, until finally she believed it.

When an hour had passed she found her eyes closing almost involuntarily, but she gave in and went with the sensation as sleep fell upon her again. Her chest rose and fell as she breathed deeply, her body using every moment of sleep to rebuild and regain its strength. Every second was valuable. Ever moment had a purpose.

But inside her dreams, every moment had a vision; a nightmare, another moment that she had forgotten.

As images of Keats sliding into the seat opposite her at the table played through her mind she couldn't work out why these thoughts were besieging her. They wouldn't go away. Wouldn't leave her alone.

"_My name's Jim and I've been looking for love in all the wrong places," _he smiled.

That smile would haunt her through the rest of the night - and every waking moment the following day. 


	7. Chapter 3, 1995: Rondo

**Chapter Three: 1995**

For the first time, Alex was genuinely pleased to see Gene enter her hospital room. A good night's sleep had done her the power of good and her speech and motility were starting to return. When she saw the face of Gene Hunt arriving she knew that she was about to get what she wanted.

"Where's my notebook?" she asked.

Gene's heart sank so hard it practically popped into his boots. Those were not the words he wanted to hear. He had expected today would bring progress, maybe even a little bit of lip action if he was lucky, but it seemed some lined paper still held a higher level of importance to Alex than he did.

"So you're still on that kick, are you?" he asked with a sigh. He pulled a notepad and a biro from his coat pocket and threw them onto the bed beside her. "Go on Bols, knock yerself out."

Alex looked at him with a frown.

"Don't call me Bowls," she said quietly, "not putting cornflakes in me."

Her words stumped Gene. Of all the things she could have said, that was way down the list of words he had been expecting. along with _"I think what our relationship needs is a ceiling mirror" _and_ "Hey, let's go and see Keats performing the Vagina Monologues."_

"_Bols," _he said blankly, "Bolly. Bollinger. Bollinger Knickers."

Alex frowned. This was obviously some sort of word association game. She'd used methods such as this with her patients. The only thing was that she wasn't sure how he got from the _Bollinger_ to the _knickers_. Perhaps he was mixing up Bollinger with brazierre?

"Sam Tyler," she whispered, "lot to answer for."

Gene's brow furrowed even deeper. He slowly sat down beside her bed and cleared his throat like a teacher about to talk to the class.

"You're… not seeming quite yourself, Lady B," he commented awkwardly.

"Alex," Alex frowned, "my name… is Alex."

"You've never minded before."

"I've never been…" she took a breath. Her body was already exhausted. "…been stuck in my own head before."

Gene hesitated and chewed hard on the inside of is cheek with nerves. Now it wasn't the fact that Alex seemed different that was troubling him; it was the fact that this all was starting to seem terribly familiar.

"Is that right?" he said quietly.

Alex didn't have the energy for pleasantries,.

"Look, _'Gene'_," he was disturbed to see her fingers twitch into tired air quotes on the top of the covers, "I need to- focus." she took a deep breath. The effort of taking was starting to drain her now, "Need to save energy. Can't think about you now." she felt exhaustion overwhelming her suddenly and didn't feel up to fighting sleep, but just before she gave in she said one last word. _"Layton."_

"_Layton?" _Gene cried, so surprised and alarmed that he knocked a bedpan flying an sent it careering into a vase of flowers which crashed to the floor spilling water and petals everywhere.

As he hastily covered it up with a couple of blankets and hoped no one would notice, Alex's words played back through his mind. He was starting to realise that there was more to this than her desperate desire for a pad of paper. There were startling gaps in her memory, and the parts missing were the ones that Gene counted on to make her _his_ Bolly.

Slowly, anxiously, he retreated from the hospital room with a world of worries on his mind. It was time to find a doctor and have a frank discussion about the effects of amnesia after a coma that may or may not involve shoving something up said doctor's nose if he did not provide sufficient information.

~xXx~

"I have a wife at home, you know."

Those words came as somewhat of a surprise to Simon. One moment he was sitting down with a list of known software piracy rings in front of him, trying to get up to speed with his new post; the next Vickery had decided to share his life story with him.

He glanced up, not sure what to say or event whether the comment had been aimed at him. It seemed that it was. Vickery as looking directly at him. There were dark circles under his eyes and his appearance was looking more dishevelled by the day.

The man was looking at him with an expectant stare. Simon wasn't sure what he was supposed to do. What did the guy want from him? There wasn't much he _could _say. He cleared his throat.

"Uh… that's nice," he said quietly.

"_Nice?" _Vickery repeated, "no it's not nice! I _love_ my wife. She's not here. And I'm not there. What's _'nice' _about that?"

Simon rested his forehead against the palm of his hand. He closed his eyes for a moment, wishing that Vickery had not chosen to have this particular conversation with him. It wasn't a topic he especially wished to indulge in. Not after all the effort he'd been putting into keeping thoughts of his separation from Robin at bay.

Since his rant at Gene the morning before Simon had done his best to follow Gene's advice and do his job. He knew others were relying on him, just as many, many good men and women had relied on Gene and, later, on Alex over the years. He still felt some resentment at being thrust into the role without having any control over it but he knew that he couldn't change things. In the absence of a way to alter the past he decided to give himself a project and focus all his attention on it in order to break through the wall of depression threatening to close in on him.

Unfortunately so far all his attempts at focusing on projects were meeting a dead end or not going the way he'd hoped. First he decided to tackle the filing system in his new office but found his new DC, Lindsay Peters, had been far too efficient and already organised everything. Then he went home on a mission to alphabetise his video collection but found a bored, anxious and frustrated Kim had already organised them in order from '_Might be able to watch after three or four stiff drinks,'_ to '_extract your own innards and burn your eyeballs if Shoebury goes within twenty meters of this tape'._

He then attempted to make a scale model of Starbug using only paper mache and toothpicks but had already used all the newspaper to line the guinea pigs' cage so he only had flour, water and toothpicks left. At bedtime his plan to name all the tiles on the ceiling hit a snag when he named six of them Robin. Then, that morning, organising his Cheerios into groups (or 'genres' as he had tried to have Kim believe) had just earned him a spoon in the face and some cheerios down his back from his houseguest.

He realised that his thoughts had taken him on a freakily wide tangent as he looked at Vickery, who was still waiting for his reaction. He looked down and sighed. He really wasn't cut out for this.

"I'm sorry you can't be with your wife right now," he said quietly.

"It would help if I even knew where I was," Vickery rambled, "What's happening to me? I mean the _real_ me? The one out there somewhere, probably dying."

Simon felt the truth rising in his throat but he just about managed to bite it back. He didn't want to get this wrong. He knew what he was and wasn't allowed to say and the words he _wanted_ to say were a definite no-no. Instead he found himself regurgitating Gene's advice to him from the day before. He almost hated himself for it, telling a broken man to make the best of a bad situation and to do his job but in the absence of better advice it was a pretty good step to follow.

For a moment he flashed back to Keats's insult - _Mini-Hunt._ That's what he'd been calling him. He gave himself a scowl. He didn't want to just be another Gene. A younger, geeky, gay version of Gene, updated for a new generation. Was that what he was destined to be here? He really hoped not.

He looked down with a sigh as Vickery stood up and left the room, punching the wall and swearing a lot along the way. He felt something burning him inside of his chest and rubbed it, feeling frustrated. He looked up again as Lindsay came into the room like a beacon of happiness. Her demeanour was the exact opposite of Vickery.

_Of course,_ Simon reminded himself, _she was already dead. She doesn't know._

It made him feel sad to think of it.

"Are you alright sir?"

He hardly realised she had spoken to him at first. He realised he was still rubbing his chest and stopped abruptly.

"Indigestion," he said. It wasn't a total lie. There was acid bubbling inside of him but it wasn't from consuming food or drink, it was from the anxiety his new role had set upon him.

"Do you want some water?" Lindsay asked.

Simon felt embarrassed by the unneeded concern and shook his head quickly.

"No - thank you," he added not wanting to come across as impolite, "I'm fine."

Lindsay shrugged with a little smile.

"If you're sure," she said, flitting back out of the office again.

Simon shook his head slowly as he exhaled. It was seeing someone so full of life that made the truth so hard to bare. There she was, a person with such a vivacious personality, a smile always on her face, a general air of life and excitement and yet he knew that somewhere in the bowels of Fenchurch West Keats would have a tape with a very graphic representation of her final moments.

_Such a waste of a life,_ he thought to himself.

He knew he wasn't cut out for this. To survive as _Mini-Gene_ he was going to need a thicker skin and a whole pharmacy-worth of antacids.

~xXx~

"There, are you comfy Alex?"

Alex felt like she'd been invaded by the _Pillow Makers Of The World 1995 Convention. _When she had woken from her sleep she had quietly asked a nurse to help her sit up so that she could write on her notepad. It seemed that sitting up involved the use of more pillows than muscles in the body.

"Yes," she said, "very comfy." she took a deep breath. "Thank you."

The nurse took the lid from the nib of the biro and slipped it on the other end, then placed it into Alex's hand and folded her fingers around it.

"Now, just take this easy and don't expect too much," the nurse warned her, "you shouldn't expect full motor function back for some time so if you find you can't write very much don't feel you have failed or get frustrated OK?"

Alex stared at the nurse. She frowned.

"My subconscious," her words slurred just a little, "is making an outlet to verbalise my common sense in order to make it more credible."

The nurse took a step back.

"I, uh, see you're coming on in leaps and bounds with your speech," she said a little nervously.

Alex sighed crossly and waited for the nurse to leave. She didn't want to humiliate herself in front of a bloody figment. She knew it wasn't going to be straightforward - she would need time to regain her motor skills, but with the progress she had made with her speech she needed to at least try.

The pen felt like a log as she held it above the notepad. She had never felt such a heavy writing implement before. What was it made from? Ten tons of lead? Slowly she lowered it to the paper, her hand shaking and trembling terribly. Using her other hand to try to steady it she began to form a letter, a very large and wobbly 'L'.

"_This is stupid," _she muttered to herself. The way she was going it would take the best part of a decade to make a list. In fact, she'd probably catch up to herself by the time she completed it. She tried to concentrate on writing an 'A' beside it but her hand lost control of the pen and it bounced and skipped out of her grasp, across the bed and onto the floor. She closed her eyes and sighed. Writing lists had always been an important part of her thought process. Without lists she had nothing! She gave an annoyed grunt and tried to gather her thoughts.

_Think, Alex. Think logically. There__'s got to be another way to do this._

Her mind ran through myriad possibilities, each more ludicrous that the last until finally she hit upon the answer, the solution that would put her logical, ordered mind back oin control.

That evening, when a slightly hesitant Gene returned to see how she was doing, she had another word for him.

"_Dictaphone."_

~xXx~

It had been a fairly full-on day for Alex. Between talking, holding a pen and even making a two-fingered salute at a particularly snooty doctor she felt as though she was finally making progress. She would see the light at the end of the tunnel now. The first step was getting out of hospital; from there she would be able to focus her efforts on working out how to leave her strange dreams of 1995 and find her way home.

Just as she was starting to feel a mist falling across her mind that would bring sleep to her exhausted mind and body she caught a glimpse of a dark figure in the doorway, his silhouette cutting a striking shape against the harsh hospital lighting in the corridor beyond. Alex blinked for a moment, unsure why he gave a hesitation. Was he coming or going? She frowned at him, expecting him to either approach her or realise he had the wrong room but he seemed to carry on staring for a while. When eventually he turned and walked away he left behind a feeling of anxiety that Alex couldn't explain. Whoever he was, his presence had caused her to feel unnerved and worried. What part of her deeply hidden psyche had he sprung up from?

She didn't have time to think about it for very long before she closed her eyes and allowed sleep to take her away. Dreams of Layton, of a stranger in a long coat, of feeling as though she wasn't quite herself and of the story of Sam Tyler's coma plagued her all night long. When she finally awoke in the morning, one question was at the forefront of her mind and she didn't like where it was leading.

"_Can you dream when you're in a dream already?"_


	8. Chapter 4, 2011: Modulation

**A/N: Sorry if you just got a 'repeat', I selected the wrong chapter :-/ in my defense I am on very high strength painkillers right now! Sorry!**

**Chapter Four: 2011**

As the week passed by Alex worked hard to regain her speech and some basic movement through her body. What she couldn't seem to regain were her memories of the life she was supposed to have. She refused visitors as often as the hospital allowed but sometimes the doctors spoke over her and told her it would be _'good for her' _to see them. And so she spent countless hours staring in near silence during the stilted conversations that an aging lawyer she hadn't seen in years and a girl who professed to be her daughter brought her way.

Her protests that she didn't have a daughter had not been well received, caused many mutterings between her doctors, a brief upping of her medication and - most disturbingly - a flood of tears from Evan so very quickly she learned to stop saying those things. Instead she had to swallow up the pain of getting hugs and kisses from a girl she didn't know. She took to yawning exaggeratedly and claiming to be '_very very tired' _after the first five minutes.

Something about the girl bothered her. She looked a little familiar but it had taken her a while to work out why. The girl bore a striking resemblance to the Price's daughter. _Oh, what was her name again? _The girl was a little older, certainly, but the resemblance was there. Same family, maybe? That could explain why Evan was connected to her, but why did he think she was _Alex's_ daughter? She ran over and over it in her head but couldn't find an answer that made even a smidgen of sense on her mind.

Her hopes of seeing Gene or anyone else she knew were fading. The only familiar face she'd seen since she woke up was Robin and where had he been ever since that day? She'd been desperate for him to return now her speech was coming back. She wanted to ask him some of the questions she was searching for answers to. Her plea to Evan to send the chap her way had fallen on deaf ears. Since feigning exhaustion had been her way of getting rid of Evan he'd seen little of the strengthening, recuperating Alex and told her he wouldn't ask anyone else to visit until she was stronger. Her plan had backfired horribly.

The sound of many footsteps edging closer to the room put her on alert and she looked around to see a group of student doctors being led into her room by a large man with an equally large clipboard.

"Now, ladies and gentlemen, next you will meet a recovering coma patient," he began.

Alex rolled her eyes.

"Zoo... Open for business," she said quietly.

"This thirty-seven year-old female spent two and a half years in a comatose state after receiving a cranial gunshot wound. DI Alex Drake has been making faster than expected progress with her recovery since regaining consciousness.

In an instant Alex felt the world cease to spin. Everything stopped around her.

_DI?_ She thought she had misheard but caught sight of the patent list on the very large clipboard. She was indeed a DI.

_Great! That's just bloody charming! I'm propelled to the future AND I get a demotion!_

She sat there like a lemon while the student doctors _oohed _and_ ahhed _and made notes about her. She felt like she should be selling popcorn and ice creams. It was with relief that she watched them leave a few minutes later and turned her attention to practicing her motor skills by giving them the finger instead.

~xXx~

Evan felt awkward as he accosted a doctor who clearly had more important things to do with his time and asked for a progress report on Alex's recovery. His concern for her was growing and he wanted to know for certain whether she was moving in the right direction.

"Mister… _White?" _the doctor asked. Evan nodded, "Alex's progress has been remarkable."

Evan had not expected to hear that.

"In what way 'remarkable'?" he asked.

"Well, for a patient who has spent two and a half years in a comatose condition," the doctor continued, "she is progressing far more quickly than we would expect." He saw Evan looking at him blankly. "Her muscle tone is very weak as she has been in a motionless state for so long but her motility is far beyond what we would expect at this stage."

"Doctor, I don't understand."

"After being out of her coma for just over a week she has already regained the ability to form basic sentences, to move her extremities as well as limited movement in her arms and legs, she can hold small objects and her hand to eye co-ordination is improving every day. Really she is exhibiting signs of a patient who had faced a comatose state for a far smaller period of time. We see her release as being weeks rather than months away."

Even swallowed as his words took him by surprise.

"B-but," he struggled to work out what to say, "but when I've been to see her she's so still and quiet," he frowned, "she's always exhausted."

The doctor frowned and scratched his head. This didn't sound like the Alex who'd been pestering him for a notebook for the last 3 days.

"I don't know what else to tell you," he sighed, "Alex is making a remarkable recovery. We're all surprised. Pleasantly surprised!"

Evan hesitated. This didn't seem to correspond with the behaviour he'd been witnessing for the last week.

"Doctor, I'm concerned by her mental state," he began, "if it's not a physical issue then she is shunning Molly and myself and, quite frankly, that disturbs me."

"Waking from a prolonged coma is a very traumatic experience," the doctor began, "she's missed out on two and a half years of her life. Of _your_ lives. She probably isn't sure how to relate to you both. Especially her daughter, who has grown up so much since she last saw her."

"But there's more to it than that," Evan shook his head, "she's said some very strange things. She's behaving like she hardly knows me. And one time she denied even having a daughter."

The doctor exhaled noisily.

"A degree of… _amnesia_… is not unusual following a injury and coma like Alex has been through."

"This isn't amnesia," Evan insisted.

The doctor sighed. He had seen Alex making incredible progress but Evan's anxieties seemed to be more than a little bit of over-anxious concern from a close family friend. He didn't want to be on the wrong end of a lawsuit for medical negligence so, reluctantly, he looked to a compromise.

"I'll tell you what," he began, "I'll perform some simple memory and cognitive tests. We'll get a clearer picture of her recall and brain function right now. Please keep in mind that she is likely to struggle with her memory for some time and that this is perfectly normal following brain trauma."

"Yes, I understand that," said Evan, "I just want to make sure she is progressing as she should." He paused and let out his breath, realising for the first time how relieved he was that the doctor had taken his concerns seriously. "Thank you."

"We'll ask her some simple questions during her afternoon check," the doctor told him, "I'm sure we'll find everything is right as rain. She's doing well," he urged him to listen, "honestly. She'll be home with you both in no time."

Evan nodded but inside couldn't feel more anxious. Something wasn't right. It hadn't been since Alex had woken up, He couldn't put his finger on what had changed, but this wasn't the Alex he'd known all her life. He only hoped that the old Alex would come forth and be back with himself and Molly very soon.

~xXx~

"Good afternoon, Alex."

Alex glanced up at the doctor as he came towards her with a fake smile. She hated that. They only gave her smiles like that of they were about to poke her somewhere personal or take more bodily fluids.

"Hello," she said quietly.

"Just wanted to ask you a few questions," he said, pulling a chair a little closer too the bed and slipping onto it, "to check your progress." He leaned forward sincerely. "We're all very pleased so far."

Alex took a deep breath.

"Why… are you checking… then?"

The doctor looked sheepish.

"We have to make sure that you are recovering well in _all _respects," he told her, "including your memory. I just want to ask you a few basics so that we can tick all the boxes." He paused ad checked his clipboard. "Can you give me your full name?"

Alex rolled her eyes. Was this really necessary?

"Alex," she began before stopping herself and sighing. _Full _name. "DCI Alexandra Drake."

Th doctor gave a slight hesitation.

"Ri-i-i-i -ight," he began, "DCI?" He watched Alex nodding slowly with a frown. "Can you tell me what your job is, Alex?"

Alex gave another sigh.

"I belong to… to Fenchurch East CID," she began tiredly, "with direct responsibility for the Emerging Narcotics department."

The doctor hesitated again. He checked the notes he had in front of him and adjusted his gasses.

"OK," he began, "and… how long have you been in charge of the… _emerging narcotics department?"_

"Almost ten years," Alex asked without hesitation.

The doctor scratched his nose. He couldn't think of anything to say for a few moments. He chewed on his lip and fiddled with his spectacles again before chancing another question. "Can you tell me what your home life is like. Alex?" he asked, "what is your marital status? Do you have any children?"

Alex felt a twitch of relief - at last, an opportunity to put him right about the non-existent daughter.

"_Engaged, no children," _she said.

The doctor took a deep breath.

"You are… _engaged?" _he repeated. He frowned as she nodded. There had been no fiancé by her bedside in the entire time she'd lain in her coma. "What's your fiancé's name, Alex?"

"Gene," Alex said quietly, "Gene Hunt."

The doctor stared at her for a long time. His eyes dropped back to his clipboard eventually and his nose twitched nervously. Eventually he got to his feet and looked at her awkwardly.

"I think," he began quietly, "we shall begin to add some memory exercises into your rehabilitation."

He looked downhearted as he walked out of the room a moment later. Alex stared after him in shocked silence as he left. What had she said? What could she possibly have said? Unless…. Unless that was the problem. What if she didn't know what she was _supposed _to say? She heard that doctor calling her a DI that morning. She thought that had been his mistake - but what if it wasn't?

Too much was strange. Too much was different - Evan, some phantom daughter, the year, no Gene, different rank - there was more to this than she had realised. _Far_ more to it.

She couldn't explain what was happening or why. She knew that all the time she was stuck in the hospital she had no chance of finding any answers. She needed to get strong and get out of there, find Robin - the only familiar face who really knew her - and ask him once and for all what was going on. Where the hell was Gene? Where was she? What the hell happened to Keats after he fired at her?

It was time to find out not just where she was - or _when_ she was - but _who_ she was too.


	9. Chapter 4, 1995: Cadence

**Chapter Four: 1995**

Alex was almost glad of the distraction when she saw a group of student doctors heading her way. It gave her a distraction from humouring 'Gene' about their so-called relationship and all the things they were going to do in the back of some _car_ when she got out of hospital. It looked as though Gene himself was glad of the distraction, to Alex's surprise, as he stood up the moment they arrived.

"I'll leave you with the spectators, Bolly -_Alex,"_ he said quickly, "I'll be back later. Do you need anything?"

"A new notebook," said Alex.

Gene sighed despondently as he left the room. For the first time he didn't even attempt to kiss her before he slipped away. Alex was relieved by that - trying to duck Gene's kissing lips was becoming exhausting. She turned her attention to the crowd of young men and women in white coats with their 'ringleader' - a tall female doctor with a clipboard.

"_Now, here we have DCI Alex Drake, cranial gunshot wound, short-term coma."_

Alex raised her eyebrow.

"DCI?" she repeated, and gave a little smile. "Well, at least my subconscious decided I deserved a promotion. I can't argue with that!"

~xXx~

"Level with me, doc."

The doctor knew it was a bad sign when he saw a perturbed Gene Hunt looming large in the doorway. He didn't like Gene Hunt. Gene Hunt was the gentleman who had threatened a number of medical professionals with items to be imminently inserted into various orifices. He had even managed to insert a few before security got in the way.

"What is it, Mr Hunt?" he sighed.

Gene stood grimly in the doorway. He took a deep breath.

"Alex," he began, "…how is she?"

The doctor sighed and dared to step a little closer.

"She's recovering well from her injury," he began, "she has regained her speech, her energy levels are improving. She _is_ having a little trouble with some of her motor function, almost as though she'd spent longer in a comatose state than she actually _did, _but that's slowly returning too. She's doing well."

Gene wasn't so sure.

"Has she still got all her marbles?"

"In what way… _'got all her marbles'?"_

Gene hesitated. He wasn't sure what to say. He wasn't even sure if he should open his mouth.

"Alex… seems to have forgotten a lot of things."

The doctor sighed and removed his spectacles to clean them.

"A degree of amnesia isn't unusual after this kind of injury," he assured him, "then there was the operation, and a short coma. It's going to take a little while for all the pieces to slot into place."

Gene cleared his throat. The doctor just wasn't getting it.

"It's more than forgetting me birthday or whether I take one lump or ten in me tea," he said, "it's… her whole…" he trailed off. He wasn't sure he wanted to delve any further. There was more to this than simple amnesia, of that he was pretty certain. He was anxious not to flag it up as anything more severe in case he brought unwarranted attention to Alex's situation. He sighed. "Thanks, Doc. I'll leave you in peace."

The doctor breathed a sigh of relief. He'd been worried Gene was going to leave him in _pieces._ However, as he watched Gene walk away a few worries filled his mind. He had to admit there were a few things about Alex's case that struck him as unusual too and a few things she had said that seemed a little peculiar. Perhaps he needed to double check with a few questions, just to make sure she was on the right track. That would settle both their minds.

~xXx~

"Good afternoon, Alex!"

Alex sighed and rolled her eyes at the arrival of the doctor. Ever since she had woken up she'd been trapped in a perpetual loop of _good mornings, afternoons_ or _evenings_ from the endless parade of medical professionals constantly trailing in and out of her room, more often than not patronising her and/or trying to stick a thermometer in unmentionable places.

"Yes, _hello,"_ sighed, frustrated that her subconscious was making her go through this. She was sure Sam Tyler never had to fend off enemy thermometers.

"You're making good progress with your recovery," he doctor told her, "I see from your notes here you've started taking a few steps."

Alex coughed slightly. Her 'few steps' had been a rather embarrassing attempt at sneaking out, foiled by her inability to get past the doorway without collapsing and by the nurse who assumed she wanted to go to the gift shop.

"Yes," she sighed.

"That's encouraging," the doctor nodded, "now, let's see… the only question mark is over your memory. We haven't tested that fully yet. Is it alright if I ask you a few basic questions and we'll go from there."

Alex had really started to tire of her "scenario". The clichéd doctors, the time travelling, borrowing from Sam Tyler's delusions - Enough was enough.

"Oh, _alright," _she sighted, "whatever gets me out of here as soon as possible."

The doctor took a seat beside her, armed with a dangerously large clipboard and began to fish a pen from his pocket.

"Let's just start with the basics," he said, "What's your full name?"

"Alex."

"_Full_ name."

Alex rolled her eyes and sighed.

"My name is DI Alexandra Drake," she said.

"Right," the doctor looked at his notes and frowned, "DI?"

Alex rolled her eyes.

"Yes," she began, "I am a police psychologist. So I understand these silly little _'mind games'_," the air quotes came out now which made the doctor hesitate.

"Right," he said again. He set the clipboard down for a moment and leaned a little closer. "What about your home life, Alex? Your family? Marital status? What can you tell me about that?"

"I am a single mother to my daughter Molly," Alex began, "She's elev-_twelve_ years old." she flinched a little, remembering the promise she made to her daughter. God, she needed to get out of here. She had to get strong and work out how to escape this strange place and all the god-awful people within it.

"You have a daughter?" the doctor frowned. There was no mention of a child on his notes, and Gene hadn't mentioned one either, "Can you tell me more about her? When was she born?"

"Nineteen ninety six," Alex sighed, "look, is this really necessary?"

The doctor hesitated.

"You… are pregnant?"

"No. Why?" Alex frowned

"But your daughter will be born next year?"

"My daughter is twelve years old!" Alex cried, "I have to get home for her birthday. I promised her. I need to be there when she blows out her candles. I _promised_ her." she began to lose her cool. She'd worked so hard to focus on the fact that this was all a dream, a fantasy, a hallucination. Now she was beginning to feel a deep sadness inside. She missed Molly, she missed Evan, she missed her life.

"Alex, I think you may need some more…. time to recover from your ordeal," the doctor slowly got to his feet, "we may need to start a little rehabilitation. I'll speak with one of my colleagues in mental health and we will be back with you on this shortly." He saw the horrified look on her face. "Nothing to worry about," he said quickly, "you've just got a few… gaps in your memory. I'm sure you will be back to full capacity soon." He gave her a sympathetic smile and left the room as Alex stared after him, panic flashing through her eyes.

She'd screwed up. She knew it. She let down her front and now she'd opened her big mouth about things that had no part in her 'fantasy'. She was supposed to play along, of course. She remembered Sam's story and how he found life was easier when he just pretended to play along with his constructs. She knew that's what she should have done - now her great big flapping mouth had set her right back and she was going to have someone with a set of flash cards turning up, asking her whether she thought any given ink blot looked more like a bird, a giraffe or a bucket of frogs._ Excellent._

She slid under the covers and pulled them up around her so that no one could see her cry. She knew that getting out of hospital was the most important thing, and to do that she would have to pull together her acting skills while blocking out the truth from her head. She would have to play along - play along with their silly little games until they allowed her to leave and she could finally work on finding her way home, with access to all the notebooks she could ever want.

It was time to improvise. Even if that meant cosying up to Gene Hunt.

"_God save my soul," _she muttered and pulled the covers further over her head.

~xXx~

"Oi, Vickery," Gene loomed large in the doorway of Simon's office. He was good at looming in doorways. He seemed to be making a habit out of it. The grumpy, frustrated face of Vickery looked up from the latest pile of inane paperwork Simon had sent his way to keep him quiet.

"Yes?"

"I need a word with your DCI," he said, "In private."

"B-but this is my _desk," _Vickery knew that was a pathetic thing to say but after losing his home, his family, his position of authority and his own time he had to cling onto whatever he had left.

"Go and file stuff," Gene told him.

"There's nothing to file," said Vickery.

"There are samples of new bog rolls in the station toilets," Gene told him, "go and file them n order from _'nice on the backside' _to '_arse sandpaper'._"

Vickery wasn't happy about Gene's interruption, nor his tone, but even the thought of spending an hour filing toilet papers seemed preferable to arguing with the man.

"Fine," he snapped, giving both Gene and Simon a dirty look as he paced crossly from the office.

Gene pushed Vickery's papers to one side, undoing all the organising he'd spent the morning working on and plonked his backside heavily on the desk. He looked at Simon who hadn't said a word yet and sighed.

"Something stinks, Shoebury," he said eventually. "I went to - _No!" _he cried as Simon lifted his arm to check for untoward smells coming from below, "Not _you,_ you Cheerio-sorting nerd."

Simon frowned.

"How did you know about that?" he asked.

"I've got Metal Mickey calling me every five minutes, begging me to revoke 'er sick leave," Gene explained, "she says if she has to spend one more day stuck in your flat with nothing to do but learn how to communicate with yer guinea pigs she might go crazy."

Simon scratched his head.

"Fine," he said, "so what were you talking about?"

"Something stinking," said Gene, "Alex…."

"Ask them to give her another bed bath," Simon said absently

"Shut up Shoebury," sighed Gene, "are you going to let me finish this time?"

Simon looked down a little awkwardly.

"Sorry."

Gene took a deep breath and tried for a third time to explain.

"Alex… she's not right," he began."

"Gene, I thought she was making progress," Simon reminded him.

Gene shook his head slowly.

"Not in the right way," he said. He felt a little awkward talking about this. "When I first met Bolly she was… different. Came here the same way as you, your first time around. She was in a different position to some. She'd had the… well, dubious honour of meeting my last DI. He'd woken up. She was 'is psychiatrist."

"Psychologist?"

"Don't you start." Gene rubbed his temples and gave a deep sigh. "When she arrived she thought she'd conjured up all these… imaginary people from her patient's coma. Meanwhile, here I was, minding me own business and going about my work, and suddenly she arrived." He reached for his flask. "Shortest skirt this side o' the Adult Channel."

Simon shuffled uncomfortably.

"Can we skip to the end?" he asked hopefully.

Gene unscrewed the cap of his flask and took a long swig. The day Alex arrived was one he'd revisited in his mind many times.

"She was a different person back then," he said, "thought this was some kind of joke. Kept waggling her fingers at me. Calling us figments and constructs. Lucky for me, that Alex disappeared a long time ago." He stared at the flask in his hands. "And now she's back."

"What do you mean?" Simon asked quietly.

"She's back to the Alex that fainted at my feet fifteen years ago," Gene explained.

"She's forgotten her time here?" Simon asked.

Gene sipped his whiskey.

"It's more than that," he said quietly.

"What do you mean?"

Gene shook his head slowly. He didn't know how to explain it.

"She's not… _forgotten," _he began, "it's like she's woken up all over again, day one."

Simon looked at Gene with concern. He wasn't sure what he could say. He didn't know the Alex that Gene knew when she first arrived in he past. He felt sure that whatever amnesia she was under would be a temporary thing but the look on Gene's face suggested he was going to get a fist in the face if he voiced that theory.

"Gene…" he began, "look, I don't know much about getting shot in the head, but I know for a fact that getting any kind of brain injury -"

"Like a computer falling on yer bonce?"

Simon narrowed his eyes.

"Thank you for constantly reminding me about that," he said.

"Shall I remind you about yer constipation and all?"

"Please don't," Simon tried to get back to the matter at hand. "After my accident it took me weeks and weeks to feel anywhere _near_ normal again, and even when I did there were big chunks of my memory that I couldn't quite get a grip on. Give her some time and be patient with her. Before you know it she'll be back to normal, home with you and working on the wedding invitations."

Gene sighed deeply. With Alex's behaviour he'd almost managed to forget they were supposed to be engaged.

"I can't see her letting me take 'er up the aisle," he said, "and before you say anything, Shoebury, that's not a euphemism!"

Simon ran his fingers through his hair and looked at Gene sadly.

"She'll remember," he said.

"Last ting I need is Bolly using air quotes at the altar."

"She won't - Gene, she'll recuperate and everything can get back to normal." he paused. "And I can get started on my best man's speech."

Gene stared at him, slightly aghast.

"You've got a high opinion of yer standing, haven't you?" he cried, "who says you're best man?"

"Who else are you going to ask?" Simon challenged.

Gene hesitated. He had a point. The way things changed constantly on his world he didn't really have any long-term friendships. Thinking back to all time he'd probably have asked Ray to be his best man if he could. Ray had really been Gene's right hand man, for a very long time. After Ray had gone to the pub there was no one who really took his place. The closest thing he'd had to a right-hand man in the interim years, he supposed, was Susannah. And she was a woman.

"Alright," he sighed, "I suppose, since I owe you for the whole… ring… buying… events we don't talk about thing… you've got the job. _But-" _He said quickly as Simon prepared to open his big mouth and suggest something Gene really didn't want to hear such as an X-Files themed reception with a wedding cake in the shape of a UFO, "your duties go as far as handing me the ring. I'll plan me own bloody stag night. One with beer and strippers. Strippers with tits, not tackle. You got that?"

Despite feeling a slightly miffed that Gene had little faith in his stag night arranging abilities, Simon nodded.

"Yes, Guv," he said.

Gene kept a wary eye on him, just in case he was about to suggest arriving at the church in Starbug or some such nonsense, but felt, nonetheless, that his talk with Simon had given him a little hope back. He got to his feet and tucked his flask away in his pocket.

"I'll leave you to enjoy the piece and quiet before your friend Vickery comes back from cataloguing turds," he said and left the room.

Simon gave a little smile and then turned his attention back to the paperwork on his desk, but inside he started to feel a little uneasy. Despite his reassurances to Gene there was a little part of him that wondered if Gene was right to be so worried. Could there be more to Alex's behaviour than simply needing a little time to recover? He hoped that they were both wrong and that Alex would be right as rain before they knew it.

Otherwise he'd never get the chance to compile a best man's speech. And, let's face it, he had a lot of Shoe-related taunts to get his own back for.

_**~xXx~**_

_**You join me as I am currently configuring my new laptop… hooray! So I can finally get my fic written in half the time without a keyboard that constantly misses out letters. That means I can finally catch up on responding to your reviews - thank you so much for all your thoughts on this fic so far, I really appreciate hearing your thoughts as it progresses.**_

_**So long, faulty keyboard - hello accurate typing!**_


	10. Chapter 5, 2011: Acciaccatura

**Chapter Five: 2011**

Alex was being a good girl now.

She reached the point of no return with the truth. She had taken it as far as she could go but the words of her doctor only went to show that she had to keep her mouth firmly closed if she ever wanted to make it out of that hospital. The sudden onset of memory therapy and lots of pointed reminders that she was only a DI, not a DCI so as not to get ideas above her station left her feeling humiliated and adrift from the life she knew.

With no one nearby who knew who she truly was she had no option but to go along with their distorted view of Alex Drake, single mother and Detective Inspector.

It was painful and difficult at first but, as the days passed, she began to find it easier to play along. Hugging Molly back whenever she threw herself into Alex's arms, humouring Evan when he spoke about taking her home, leaving behind all talk of Gene, of 1995 and of CID at Fenchurch East – they were tools in her toolkit. All elements of the perfect plan. Every lie she told or oddity she agreed with took her one step closer to going home. As soon as she was out of those four walls and away from the watchful eye of the doctors who were all too quick to come at her with a bloody great clipboard full of questions, the sooner she could find Gene and work out what the hell had happened to the life she longed to return to.

She smiled at Evan as he praised her progress. The smile was as fake as a weather girl's grin when she brought news of storms laying ahead for the British Isles. But she was good at that now; her fake smiles had become the masterpiece of her disguise. Her disguise as a woman of the twenty-first century. The disguise of a woman who knew who she was and who she shared her life with. Every smile, every nod, every word she spoke was fake through and through.

Of course, she had introduced it incrementally. Didn't want to overdo things. From a slight, _"I'm sorry I was offhand with you yesterday, Evan, I was just very tired,"_ building up all the way to _"I just can't wait to come home with you and Molly."_ The lies stung her, they stuck in her throat more often than not and she had to choke them out, but with each one she watched Evan's expression becoming happier, warmer, more and more relieved. She had to work extremely hard at it but finally she felt she was making progress at convincing him she was _'fine'._

The doctors bought her story too. The 'memory' exercises, she excelled in. Their little tests, she nailed every time. Day by day she built up her strength and her stamina, regained more motility and perfected those fake smiles.

But inside? Inside, she died a little every time she told one of those lies. Every time she put a fake kiss on the cheek of a girl she felt no bond with. Every time feigned excitement at Evan's arrival. Every time she denied her life with Gene. It took her a step closer to getting home, and a step further away from happiness.

~xXx~

On Tuesday 25th January, when almost a month had passed since Alex had woken from her coma, someone was declared an innocent man.

The relief that Robin felt as the verdict reverberated around the courtroom was like nothing on earth. He thought he had felt relief before – _seeing Simon wake up after his accident, the news that Keats hadn't carried out the ultimate revenge on Simon, finding that his favourite Red Dwarf DVD wasn't scratched after all - _all of that disappeared into the background as the court ruled that, despite his heightened emotional response to the situation when Nailer fled, the fallen tree was an accident waiting to happen.

Innocent. Free. Reinstated. Back to reality.

He closed his eyes and exhaled with relief as he stood outside the courts, then realised there were cameras aimed in his direction and hastily made his escape. Now that his ordeal was over there was only one place he wanted to go and one person he wanted to share the news with. The one person he thought would care.

Robin hadn't seen Alex since his visit the day after her surprise awakening. That hadn't been his decision. If he'd had his way he would have been at the hospital damn near every day. After her strange turn Evan had been very insistent that Robin should keep away. Robin had protested, unsure what harm his visits could possibly do, but Evan was very certain that she wasn't strong enough to see anyone outside of the family group. With all of the hard work that Evan had poured into his case he didn't feel he could go against his requests, so reluctantly he'd left Alex well enough alone.

_Perhaps Evan was right,_ he thought to himself. After all, Robin wasn't a member of the family. He wasn't even a close friend. In fact, he and Alex had only been in each other's company for a grand total of three days. As far as Evan was concerned they were even less than three-day-friends. Evan knew Robin as '_Simon's Boyfriend'_ – Simon being the one who saved Alex from a homicidal Keats, Robin just being the one who picked him up and dropped him off when he visited her.

But Evan or no Evan, Robin needed to see her. He'd given her plenty of space, and now he was sure she needed some friends to buoy her spirits.

He arrived at the hospital looking particularly smart, still in his suit from court, and purchased a bright bouquet of flowers from the hospital gift shop before making his way slowly to Alex's room. She had been moved into a regular ward, with a private room at Evan's request, backed up with a little appearance from the healthy contents of his wallet. Alex hadn't argued. The last thing she wanted was to be stuck in some ward where nosey strangers were busily asking her what the hell happened to her head.

Alex knew she was making progress. Although that progress had felt like it moved at a snail's pace to her, to the doctors she was recovering at an incredible speed. She had taken her first steps, albeit awkwardly and unbalanced. There may have been a _falling-head-first-into-a-plant-incident_ at some point, but she was choosing not to think about that. She had started to eat and drink properly, although holding cutlery was proving tricky. As long as no one expected her to cut up a steak she was more than happy to give anything a try though.

Another day, another fake smile as Evan told her how proud he was of her for the progress she had made.

"Even that doctor with the sticky-out-ears and the ratty moustache thinks you will be able to leave hospital in a matter of weeks!" he said happily.

"Good," Alex said quietly with a Cheshire Cat smile and a nod.

She noted with relief that Evan was twitching a little in his seat. That was the signal that he was about to stand up and leave. _Good,_ she thought sincerely,_ time for peace and quiet_. Time to take a rest from pretending. The mask was very difficult to maintain for long period of time. Sure enough, he shuffled to the edge of his seat and stood up.

"Well, I think it's time for me to leave you for a while," he said, "Molly is insisting on cooking tonight and, let's be honest, if I'm not home by the time she begins there might not be much of a home left afterwards!"

Alex feigned a laugh, pretending to be in on a joke about a daughter she didn't even know.

"I hope you enjoy your meal," she said quietly.

"I'm sure I shall," said Evan. He smiled and tapped Alex on the shoulder before turning to leave. "I'll bring Molly in tomorrow evening."

Alex flinched as she told the hardest lie of all.

"I can't wait to see her again."

"She can't wait to see you, too." Evan gave a wave and a strange shake of his umbrella which annoyed Alex beyond comprehension, then he was gone.

"Thank god for that," Alex sighed quietly, leaning back against the pillows and closing her eyes with relief. One more moment with Evan and she may have resorted to pulling the emergency alarm and faking some kind of serious disease.

~xXx~

Robin felt a true sense of happiness as he walked through the hospital corridors. For the first time he didn't have the awful weight of the case hanging over him, and as far as he knew Alex was on the mend. Finally he was going to get to see her properly, to actually talk with her.

Since waking up, he'd been through seven shades of hell. Not only has Simon died in the accident but Robin knew now that death wasn't 'the end'. That made it even harder for him; knowing that Simon was still existing out there but that he couldn't reach out and touch him. No one understood that. He hadn't spoken to anyone about Gene's world. He didn't dare. He remembered what happened to Simon after he woke the first time around. It wasn't a risk he could take.

It wasn't until his visit from Kim with Simon's letter that Robin was even able to let his mind wander back to Gene's world. He'd been trying to block it out for weeks, but now he would have Alex to talk to and he had a feeling she'd need someone who understood every bit as much as he did.

He turned the corner and took a step right into Evan which scared the life out of him. He gave a girly shriek, then felt like an idiot and tried to cover it up with a manly cough. He noted Evan looking a little perturbed by their clash as he examined his tie for traces of pollen, then finally smoothed his shirt down and addressed Robin.

"I thought you would be out celebrating tonight," he said.

Robin hesitated. He didn't really have anyone to celebrate with.

"No," he said, "I'm just looking forward to actually sleeping tonight." He paused and looked at Evan sincerely. "I know I said it earlier but I really cannot thank you enough for all you've done."

Evan smiled and held out his hand to shake Robin's.

"It was the right outcome today," he said, "you should never have even had to go to court over this." He looked at the slightly squashed flowers in Robin's hand. "Are those for me?" he frowned.

"Wha-_no,"_ Robin said quickly, "no, these are for Alex."

Evan looked a little wary.

"Ahh," he began, "I'm still not sure she's ready for visitors outside of the close family circle."

Robin hesitated.

"You said she was doing much better," he said.

"Yes," Evan said slowly, "in many ways she is. But her recovery will be long and slow and sometimes she even finds visits from myself and Molly fairly exhausting. I've been sitting with her for quite a while – she will probably need some rest."

Robin stared at his flowers, so much disappointment filling his thoughts.

"But… I got flowers and everything!" he protested.

"I'm sorry," Evan began, "but I'm sure you understand, I just don't want anything to hamper Alex's recovery."

"What do the doctors say?" Robin challenged, "do they think she is still not ready for visits from her friends?"

"This isn't her doctor's decision;" Evan said a little brusquely, "I raised Alex through her later childhood and teenage years. I was there for her when her parents died, when her marriage broke up, when her life was put in jeopardy. She's like a daughter to me and I'm still scared of losing her." He gave a sigh. "Give her one more week, Robin, then I'm sure I'll feel more confident about her recuperation to see others visiting her."

Robin stared at Evan, He could understand his concern and his protective nature in a way but it had been over three weeks since Alex woke from her coma. He'd heard increasingly positive things about her progress and Evan's concerns really seem to be justified. But he'd seen Evan in court and didn't fancy his chances of winning an argument against the man.

"Alright, he said quietly, "I'll come back next week to see her." Good man," said Evan. He patted Robin patronisingly on the shoulder. "I'm sure by next week she'll be raring to see you."

"Sure," Robin said quietly.

He stepped back and watched Evan leave quickly, anxious about the state he would find the kitchen in from Molly's cooking, then stared at his poor flowers again. Despite being a little squashed and smelling slightly more like Evan's aftershave than they did of their original scent they were still bright and beautiful, and Alex still deserved to have them.

He gave a deep sign. He didn't want to go against Evan's wishes, especially after all the man had done for him but he couldn't understand what would be so bad about a quick visit. Even if she was tired all he needed to do was drop off the flowers, say hello and leave.

_Decision made,_ he decided. Evan never even had to know.

He trotted quickly along the corridor and turned another corner, coming eventually to the right ward. He began to feel a little anxious suddenly although he couldn't explain why. Perhaps it was the sheer anticipation of seeing someone who he had only known from 'the other side'? Whatever it was, he was a moment away from finally seeing her again and being able to thank her properly for saving his life and his soul.

When he peered around the door of her room he wasn't sure what he expected to see but it certainly wasn't someone sitting up in bed with a clean nightshirt, washed hair, a bowl of soup to one side and a notebook to the other.

"_Alex?"_

At the sound of his voice Alex froze. She thought she was hearing things at first. She had waited for days and weeks for Robin to return and now that he had she wasn't sure that this wasn't a hallucination. Slowly she turned her head to the doorway and have an involuntary gasp as the one familiar face she'd seen since she awoke stood right there before her with what appeared to be a cross between a bunch of flowers and a car crash.

"_Robin!"_

Robin's face lit up with excitement as he saw the recognition on his face but that excitement quickly changed to anxiety as her expression turned from joy and relief to desperation, her eyes glistening with tears.

"Alex?" he glanced around nervously. Has Evan been right? Was she not up to visitors yet?

"Robin," she whispered, "why haven't you been back to see me?"

Robin hesitated. This hadn't been the reaction he'd been expecting. He took a few steps towards her and sat down by her bed.

"Evan said you weren't up to visitors," he explained, "after you found your first few days so difficult he thought it was best that you only saw him and Molly until you were stronger."

"But I needed you!" Alex cried, her 'best behaviour' slowly disappearing and her mask all but discarded.

"Why?" Robin felt a sense of alarm as he stared at her. It was like watching a wall crumbling before him.

Alex's eyes filled with raw emotion. All the questions she had been brewing in her heart began to spill from her lips.

"Robin, where's Gene?"

Robin drew back a little. Her question took him by surprise.

"_Gene?"_ he repeated.

"He hasn't been to see me," her words were edged with tears, "no one even talks about him. Has something happened to him?"

Robin's mouth went very dry suddenly. To balance it out, his palms grew damp with perspiration.

"Alex, Gene's not… _here."_

"I _know_ that!" cried Alex, "that's why I'm asking you here he is!"

"No… _Alex…._ He's not _from_ here…" Robin's hands began to tremble. He swallowed as he stared at her. Of all the reactions he'd been anticipating this one was not on the list.

"No one will tell me where he is," Alex hissed urgently, grasping his hand in a sudden motion that made him jump, "and they think _I'm_ someone else, Robin."

"What do you mean someone else?"

"They say I've got a daughter," Alex's tears began to fall, "and they've got my rank wrong. _And," _her expression became more urgent by the moment, "if I've been in a coma for two and a half years then why isn't it nineteen ninety eight?"

Robin gulped audibly. Her words were setting off a deep-seated panic within him.

"Alex," he whispered, "What year are you from?"

Alex's tears began to fall harder. Finally she could speak the truth.

"Nineteen ninety-five," she whispered.

Robin chewed on his lip anxiously.

"Don't you remember," he began quietly, "what happened to send you there?"

"I…" Alex faltered, "I transferred to Fenchurch East in nineteen eighty one. Promoted to DCI nineteen eighty five."

"You didn't transfer," Robin was surprised to find his voice was trembling, "you were shot."

"By Keats."

"_No! _By Layton."

"No, _Keats…"_ Alex shook her head slowly, "Keats shot me. In the hospital room. _Kim's_ hospital room. And then I went into a coma… and I woke up in two thousand and eleven."

Robin's adam's apple moved as he swallowed again.

"You don't remember," he whispered, "do you?"

"Remember _what?"_

"Alex… you're not _from _nineteen ninety five," Robin's own eyes began to fill with tears even though he couldn't explain why, "you're from _now. _You were shot two and a half years ago, on Molly's birthday."

"Forget _Molly!"_ cried Alex, "I have no idea who she is but she's not my daughter! I thought you would help me, Robin!" her eyes were frantic now and her voice edged with fear, "I've been waiting for you to come back, to help me! But you're not telling me _anything!_ Where's Gene? Where the hell is Gene?"

Robin's eyes darted around. Alex's state was becoming more frantic by the second and he started to truly, deeply regret ignoring Evan's advice.

"Alex, please… _please_ calm down," he begged, "you'll give yourself another heart attack!"

"Just tell me where he is!" she cried, "is he OK?"

"He doesn't come from here!"

"Please tell me he hasn't left me?"

"Alex, he's not _from here."_

"Then tell me where I can find him!"

Robin swallowed. The panic in her eyes prised the truth from his lips before he could stop it.

"He's… _dead,_" his voice broke horribly as he spoke, "just like everyone else."

Alex's frantic pleas stopped as she froze. His words didn't seem to make any sense. No sense at all.

"_Who's_ dead?" she whispered.

Robin chewed ferociously on the inside of his cheek. He felt his heart thumping in his chest as he silently begged her not to make him go on. Her eyes, however, urged him to speak.

"It's… it's the place we go," he whispered, "when it's over, or we're… hanging in the balance."

Alex looked at him blankly. His words had no meaning, No meaning at all.

"Where's Gene?" she asked again.

Robin's eyes closed in despair as he shook his head. He wished desperately for a way out but there seemed to be none.

"I made a mistake coming here," he whispered, "you _did_ need more time to recover. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Alex."

Alex looked on in horror as he got to his feet, flowers still in hand.

"You can't go!" she begged, "please, Robin. You are the _only_ one who understands! You're the only one who knows. What's happening? Where am I? How did I get here? My name is Alex Drake. I was shot, and that bullet sent me forward to twenty-eleven…"

Robin looked on in dismay as Alex began to shake, just a little at first, then more violently. Her eyeballs rolled back into her sockets and he realised in horror that she was suffering some kind of seizure. Letting the flowers drop to the floor he ran from the room, screaming for medical help. Within seconds a doctor and a nurse ran his way and dashed past him, slipping and sliding on the leaves and petals as they did so.

Robin backed away in horror as he watched them attending to her. Why the hell didn't he listen to Evan? Why? Alex wasn't ready yet… she just wasn't ready yet, and now look what he'd done!

Fighting tears he fled the hospital. He had to get out of there. Couldn't risk his presence bringing her another turn. He felt such tremendous guilt and true sorrow to see the strong woman he'd met in '95 reduced to such a shadow of herself. Something was seriously wrong and he knew it – but what the hell was he supposed to do to help her?

That was a question he wasn't going to find easy to answer.


	11. Chapter 5, 1995: Martellato

**Chapter Five: 1995**

Alex had been on her best behaviour for three days now. The conversation with her doctor had been a wake-up call to her and she knew that if she wanted to get out of that stinky, imaginary hospital in her head and to find her way home then she was going to have to play along and backtrack, big time.

She tried to play it the smart way, easing herself in. Didn't want to change too quickly and raise suspicion. On the first day she smiled at Gene and stopped using air quotes when she said his name. On the second day she apologised for her behaviour, claimed to be feeling much better and even gave him a peck on the cheek. Now, on the third day she was all flirty giggles and smiles. It helped, of course, that she had pickpocketed Gene's flask the day before and gave herself a large dose of Dutch courage to help her go through with the act of faking some _luuurrrrrve._

She had been polite and accepting of all the other oddities that had come her way. She hadn't challenged or questioned them for a second. The ancient technology, the Britpop invasion on the radio, all the talk about New Labour on the news. She had even greeted her various visitors without question, despite having no idea who they were.

First there had been the young blonde girl who thought it was acceptable to describe the pros and cons of nipple piercings to her, then the geeky weirdo who was blathering on about the various genres of Cheerios, red spaceships and some _girl_ called Robin who, from his description, seemed to have a fairly serious problem with her facial hair. Or perhaps she had misunderstood that part.

She felt like she was making progress now. She'd been about making her 'transition' to the _new and improved_ Alex seem as realistic as possible, concerned that Gene might not buy it but she seemed to have chosen just the right path. Her reward was the relaxed look on his face as he sat be her bed, absently picking something off the sole of his shoe with a thermometer.

"You're looking good, Bols," he said. She still had to cringe when he used that name. She didn't like it. Put her in mind of soup bowls. Kept picturing someone trying to use her as crockery to assist in the consumption of some lovely soup.

"I'm feeling much better now," Alex said with a slightly tipsy smile, failing to add that the reason for feeling so much better was the pilfered scotch she'd downed about fifteen minutes prior to his arrival.

All the alcohol in the world wasn't enough to stop her reeling in horror when an amorous and frustrated Gene leaned close to her and made noises to the effect of wanting to join her in bed. With a slight look of horror on her face she politely but firmly pushed him away and instantly regretted the action that may have damaged her cunning plan, so some damage limitation was in order.

"I would_ love_ to… welcome _little Gene_ back," she felt a wave of nausea rise into her throat as she managed to say the words that threatened to have her retching over the side of the bed, "but not here. Not in hospital. Horrible sheets, you see. All rough. I would rather have some," she flinched just a little as she reached out to touch his arm, "_fun in silk."_

"Not sure the NHS can stretch to your expensive tastes, Bollyknickers," Gene said, raising an eyebrow.

"Then how about having a quiet chat with one of those doctors you seem to get on so well with," Alex began pointedly, "ask then when I can come home."

Gene looked a little nervous.

"They don't seem to like me very much," he commented, "shoved too many things up their collective nostrils."

"All the more reason for you to be the one to ask them," Alex tried, "if anything will get me out of here early it will be the thought of escaping Gene Hunt on a rampage."

Gene thought about her words. They made a lot of sense. Threatening to jam a selection of objects into people's noses – and other less accessible orifices – certainly got results.

"You promise there'll be silk sheets involved?" he asked.

Alex gave a large, false smile.

"Would I lie to you?" she beamed.

Gene hesitated for a moment then ran his tongue across the inside of his lip, nodding slowly.

"Leave it wi' me, Bols," he said, "I think the National Health Service has taken you as far as it's ever going to. Time to try the National Hunt Service instead."

Alex gave another fake smile as he walked away to search for a medical professional to threaten, then made vomiting noises behind his back. This _act_ was killing her, but it was a means to an end and she knew it was a small price to pay if it meant getting back on her feet and back into the wide world beyond.

It was only a few minutes later when a triumphant Gene returned to impart the good news.

"Two more days, Drakey," he told her, "just two more days and we'll be rolling around in those silk sheets."

This time, Alex's smile was far from false. Forgetting the part about Gene Hunt and some silk sheets - a thought that made the alcohol bubble in her stomach and threaten to come right back up again - she finally saw light at the end of the tunnel. Two days. Two more days and the stupid hospital and the doctors and nurses within it would be a thing of the past – there would be only Alex, her wits and her determination to find a way out of this place and get back home to Molly. The last few days had been a long and exhausting struggle but now she could see the _fire exit_ looming large.

"_Perfect,"_ she whispered.

For once, that night, she was going to have sweet dreams, she was sure of it. Sweet dreams of freedom. And she deserved them.

Gene also had a feeling he was going to have sweet dreams that night, but his were going to involve himself, Alex, silk sheets and a lot of spreadable chocolate. The moment the doctor said – under duress – that he was happy to discharge Alex in just two days he felt his spirits lift greatly for the first time since her shooting and he could see an end to the ordeal in sight. He was happy. Deeply, truly happy.

Unfortunately, that happiness was only to last as long as it took to get back to CID and open up a parcel.

~xXx~

"Shoebury, a word."

Simon glanced up. Gene's tone surprised him. As he caught sight of his expression he began to feel anxious.

"Something wrong?" he asked nervously, "has something happened to Alex?"

But Gene didn't reply. He simply began a slow but determined walk back to his office. Simon swallowed nervously. He didn't know what was going on or what the matter was with Gene but something certainly wasn't right. Feeling nerves beginning to jump in his guts he stood up and began to follow him, both Vickery and Lindsay staring after him as he went.

He began to chew on his lip as he reached Gene's office. It was a nervous habit that he'd picked up from Robin. He wasn't sure why but he had a sinking feeling that something very, very bad was about to unfold.

"Shut the door," Gene told him.

Simon closed it right up and looked on a little anxiously as Gene closed the blinds to shut out prying eyes.

"What's the matter?" he asked.

"Sit down, Shoebury," Gene said.

Simon's nerves began to increase. He nervously took a seat and looked at Gene expectantly as he pulled out a box and lifted up a video cassette from within it.

"What's that?" he asked. The last time he saw a tape it had contained something very, very grim indeed and he hoped this one was not from Keats's personal video collection.

"Evidence," Gene said gruffly, "this was supposed to be security camera footage of a suspect fleeing from a shooting. Sent our way to help with our enquiries." He turned the tape over in his hands once or twice. "Except, I think they must have sent me the wrong thing because this is some kind of poofy porno."

Simon stared on. He couldn't even pretend to know where Gene was heading with this.

"I don't understand," he said quietly.

Gene took a short walk to the TV/Video combi in the corner of his office and shoved the tape roughly inside. As he glanced back at Simon, Simon noted one side of his upper lip was raising ever so slightly in a half-sneer.

"Maybe it will start to make more sense when you watch the thing," he said.

The screen burst into life with a fizz of static which cleared abruptly as the tape began to play. To begin with Simon wasn't sure what he was watching. There were a couple of figures tussling in what appeared to be the roof of a building.

With a gasp and a hand over his mouth, the contents of the tape became very clear indeed.

"Shit," he breathed.

"It's a good one, this porno," Gene began, "look, it's got a plot and everything. Some kind of fight. Why do you think that is? Could it be because one of them is a mad man whose been shooting his gun as often as he shoots off his mouth?"

"Gene…" Simon felt his heart begin to race.

"And now it turns into an action film," Gene commented at the image of a tumbling Simon plunging over the side of the roof, holding on by a single hand, "course, I prefer westerns meself. But the stunts are pretty good, if you like this kind of thing."

Simon swallowed. He didn't want to watch the rest of this.

"Gene, listen," he began, getting to his feet but a bark from Gene put him in his place.

"_Sit down, Shoebury!"_

Like an obedient dog, Simon had no choice but to follow his instructions. As Gene's yell sent him reeling back into his chair he watched the strange sight of Keats grasping his hand and pulling him back to safety.

"I don't want to watch this," his voice broke a little as he spoke quietly.

"Oh, I think you should give it a chance," barked Gene, "the action's only just starting to hot up now."

On the screen before them the black and white image of Keats placed a hand on his own chest to feel his heart beating. Simon felt his lips turn dry and ran his tongue across them. He remembered every moment of the strange exchange they'd had on that hospital roof but had been working to block it out for the last week. It had disturbed him to see it again, shaken him inside.

"Stop the tape, Gene," he whispered a plea.

Gene ignored him.

"Could do with some popcorn right about now," he said, eyes fixed on Simon as the tape showed the two rooftop figures just staring at each other. "You'll like the next bit," he said coldly. On the screen, Keats reached out slowly and pulled up Simon's blood-smeared shirt to see the wounds that lay beneath. "Funny, thought _you_ were supposed to be the shirt lifter."

"Just switch it off!" Simon begged, getting to his feet again. On screen at that moment, Keats reached forward and laid his palm on Simon's chest, feeling for his heartbeat. Seeing it played back to him made Simon feel sick and anxious inside. _"Please, _Gene."

He reached out to stop the tape but Gene blocked him easily, grasped him by the shirt and pushed him back into the chair.

"I _said_ sit down!" he yelled, "We haven't even reached the best part yet!"

Simon swallowed hard and tried to block out the sight of Keats reaching out to his face, gently running a thumb across his cheek. He looked down, shame rising inside of him and spreading as a pink glow across his cheeks.

"Very touching," said Gene, "give that man an Oscar."

"I was bleeding," Simon protested, "he was wiping the blood away."

"Then why has he got a small blimp inflating in his trousers?" scowled Gene. He pressed pause and froze the figures on the screen, Keats's hand stretching out towards Simon's cheek for the second time, then turned to stare at Simon with something approaching fury across his face. "One thing, Simon. What was the _one thing_ I said to you after he put a bullet in Bolly's head?" he paused for just a moment. _"Get him._ That's all I wanted. Get him."

Simon felt tears springing to his eyes, even though he couldn't explain why. Guilt? Shock? He wasn't sure.

"I was trying, Gene!" he protested, "I chased him up to the roof –"

"And then you whispered sweet nothings to each other and let him disappear!"

"Oh, don't be ridiculous!" Simon cried, getting up again. This time Gene didn't instruct him to sit down.

"You had the chance to get him, Shoebury!" Gene cried, "There he was, there for the taking!"

"I didn't know he was going to take a flying jump and vanish into thin air!" Simon protested, perspiration beginning to appear across his forehead.

"But you were happy to let 'im inspect yer pecs while Alex lay dying in that hospital room!"

"For god's sake, Gene, it wasn't _like_ that!" Simon cried, "That human side came out again… just for a moment…"

"And you thought you'd help him do some coming out of the closet as well?"

"Don't be stupid!"

"I've seen the tape three times now, Shoebury! Keats was two seconds away from joining the back door brigade when Metal Mickey arrived and literally saved your arse!"

"Look," Simon cried angrily, "nothing happened, nothing was _going_ to happen. I almost fell off that bloody great building – I was terrified. I couldn't move… didn't know what to do. Keats…" he closed his eyes just for a moment. "he had an attack of humanity. He saved my life."

"After trying to end it!"

"Well what do you want me to say?" cried Simon, "I'm _sorry._ I'm sorry I didn't know he was going to jump off the roof and disappear faster than a bottle of scotch in your office!"

Gene took a step towards him.

"Getting personal now are you, Shoebury?" Despite being just a little taller, Simon knew Gene had the strength and the bulk and felt more than a little nervous as he edged closer, "I put my trust in you. _Get Keats_ – that's all I asked you to do."

"Don't you think I've been cursing myself every day since?" Simon cried, "what could I have done any differently?"

"Tried slapping a pair of handcuffs on him instead of getting _little Jimbo_ excited?" Gene suggested angrily.

"I did no such thing!" cried Simon.

"No, you just sat there gazing into his bloody eyes!" Gene spat angrily in his face. He took a deep breath and a step backward. He knew that his temper was reaching epic proportions and could see himself getting into trouble if he didn't try to quell his fury. He turned away, no longer wishing to look Simon in the eye. "You were supposed to get him, Simon," he said despondently, "to get him for what he did to Alex. Now he's vanished into thin air. You had the perfect opportunity, and you blew it."

Simon felt something rising in his chest; a lump of guilt that made it hard to breathe. The awful part was that he knew Gene was right. He was spot on with everything he'd said. Simon should have taken the opportunity to grab Keats as soon as he'd caught his breath, but he didn't. He'd been caught in that same hypnotic state that Keats had used to reel in Kim, and had even tried on Alex. How did he let that happen? He had replayed that moment over and over but still had no answers.

"I'm sorry," his voice crackled with tears he was determined not to give in to, "I'm so sorry, Gene."

Gene looked back at him, just for a second. His eyes barely made contact with Simon's stare. He couldn't stand to.

"Get out of my sight, Shoebury."

Simon felt himself deflate as Gene's words hit him.

"Gene…"

"_Out."_

There was no arguing with that tone. Gene had spoken.

Feeling as though someone had just ploughed up his heart, Simon slunk to the door and slipped out of the office like a disgraced cat who'd done its business behind the desk.

One strange moment of hypnotic allure from a madman on the hospital rooftop and the friendship he and Gene had started to build had collapsed like ten tons of stone balancing on a snail's shell.


	12. Chapter 6, 2011: Tacet

**Chapter Six: 2011**

Robin sat at the kitchen table. He wished, and not for the first time, that Simon was sitting in the opposite seat, talking about everything and nothing, watching the world go by out of the kitchen window. Somehow their time at the kitchen table was one of the things he missed most without Simon in his life. They had shared many moments in that place. There was something about the kitchen table that just seemed to breed memories. It was where they'd sat to laugh, to cry, to talk, to listen, to share, to plan – most aspects of their lives had involved at least one conversation taking place at that table.

It was still Robin's main thinking spot. That's why it was the first place he gravitated to when he arrived home. The day had taken an unexpected and shocking turn after the high he'd experienced at being declared a free man just a couple of hours before. This was supposed to be a night of relief and celebration, now there was only worry on his mind. He thought about Alex and her funny turn; her emotional questions, loss of memory and strange seizure, all of which had scared him to witness. He'd initially thought that Evan had been right; that she was simply not up to visitors yet, but as he'd walked slowly home and relived the visit and again he realised there was more to it than that.

It was almost funny to think of it now but Robin had been worried that she might have woken with no memory of her time in the past. After such a long coma he figured that such a case of amnesia could be likely, but it seemed that the opposite was true. Somehow her frightened, jumbled pleas reminded him of how he felt waking up in 1995, just in reverse. It was as though she had woken up in 2011 with no memory of her life before Gene's world. It felt like the Alex he spoke to that afternoon was an Alex who had no memory of her modern life.

He pressed his hands to his forehead. _Shit. That was it._ Somehow she had either blocked out her past, or –

No. It sounded ridiculous. But it was almost like, to Alex, her time in the real world had never happened at all. To Alex, 1995 was as real as it got and 2011 was just a very vivid dream.

Robin stared at the empty space across the table. He could almost see Simon sitting there, trying to help him work out a solution. At times like this he really longed to have him back. That was something unique about the two of them. They were more than just being friends and lovers, they were like one being with two bodies; they functioned better together than either of them did apart. Now Robin was left without Simon, he felt like only half a person.

"I really miss you, Si," he whispered.

The telephone started to ring which caused him to jump a little. His thoughts were finally broken by that sound. For the last couple of hours all he had been able to think about was Alex. He slowly got to his feet and slumped to the telephone which he answered with a sigh.

"Hello?"

"Robin?" the voice on the phone began awkwardly, "It's… it's Evan here."

Robin froze at those words. He began to feel anxious. He had been half expecting a call after Alex's turn. He had a feeling this was not going to be a pleasant conversation.

"H-hello, Evan," he said quietly.

There was a slight sigh on the line.

"I told you to leave Alex alone," he reminded Robin.

Robin bit his lip and closed his eyes for a moment. He knew it. He knew this was coming. As soon as he heard Evan's voice.

"Evan," he began quickly, "I'm sorry, I know what you said, but…"

"She has been through an extremely traumatic time!" Evan told him curtly, "her recovery got off to a very difficult start and she has just found an even keel! I didn't want anyone outside of close family upsetting her. Additional visitors are too much for her to cope with."

"I just wanted to see her and take her some flowers!" Robin protested.

"Now, thanks to your _visit,"_ Evan made it sound as though Robin had made an attempt to remove one of Alex's limbs while he was there, "Alex has suffered a seizure and the doctors are concerned about this affecting her recovery!"

"Hey, you can't go _blaming_ me," Robin began, "the doctors allowed me through! They had no qualms about –"

"But _I_ did!" Evan said angrily, "I had a bad feeling about it. I asked you to give her one more week to recuperate and grow stronger and you went against my expressed wishes!"

"I am sorry!" Robin didn't know what else he could say, "I just wanted to visit a friend!"

"Well from now on I'd appreciate it if you kept your distance," Evan said haughtily.

Robin hesitated.

"What do you mean?"

He heard another sigh on the line.

"Robin," Evan began, "I can understand_… to a degree_… why you have latched onto Alex. I understand that losing Simon must have brought you terrible, terrible grief and that you are trying to hold onto any reminders of him…"

"Hey, wait a moment," Robin scowled.

"…But this isn't the way to do it," Evan continued, "I feel that you have… become reliant on us over the last few weeks as a substitute for being with Simon."

Robin's mouth fell open, aghast.

"_What?"_

"You have attached yourself to myself and Molly because Simon and Alex were friends…"

"Now, wait a minute," Robin shook with anger, "that's not true. Alex is my friend too."

"Robin… I remember meeting you for the first time. Simon was visiting Alex after he had been discharged. You were just driving him home. You didn't know Alex. By your own admission you'd never met."

Robin began to shake. He had no answer for that. There was nothing he could say.

"I just wanted…," he trailed off.

"Now, I was glad to help you with your case," Evan told him, "and I am grateful for all the time that you and Simon spent by Alex's bed during her coma. But it is time to move on now." He heard Evan give another sigh. "I feel it would be best if you sought some professional counselling for your grief. Perhaps in time you will be able to move forward. But clinging to friendships that only existed through your partner won't help."

Robin trembled. There was not a thing he could say. He couldn't explain about 1995. He couldn't explain Gene's world. As far as Evan knew, Robin and Alex didn't know each other. They were two strangers on the street. He didn't have a leg to stand on.

"I just…," he tried, but Evan hadn't finished.

"I have asked the hospital to bar you and any other visitors outside of my pre-approved list from seeing her," he continued, "and I am having the wheels put into motion to remove her from hospital care and continue her rehabilitation at home where I can keep a firmer hand over who is allowed to see her and when."

"Evan, I'm sorry…," Robin tried, but Evan wasn't listening.

"I hope that you can get yourself sorted out," he said, "because I do understand how much you have been through. I am sure you will understand why I cannot risk Alex having a further… _attack_ just by receiving a visit." He paused. "Goodbye, Robin."

As the line went dead and Robin stared at the receiver he could barely believe what had occurred. _Banned_ from seeing Alex? He knew Evan was her godfather but he was behaving like the father of a teenage girl who he didn't want seeing boys on a school night.

He threw the receiver across the room, vaguely amazed that it didn't smash and break. He felt angry – angry with Evan for treating him that way, angry with himself for not listening to him in the first place and angry for ever having been in that position. Why did any of this have to happen? What happened to his quiet, peaceful existence where he'd share a joke with Simon over breakfast, head out to a job he loved and come home to a night of DVDs and companionship? Where had that life gone?

Something felt wrong. Something felt very wrong indeed and he knew that this wasn't going to be the end of the matter, he could feel it. Whatever Evan said, Alex needed help. He was pretty certain of that. He just hoped that he would somehow be able to offer her what she needed, despite Evan ruling over her recovery with an iron fist.


	13. Chapter 6, 1995: Stretto

**Chapter Six: 1995**

Simon sighed as he turned the key in his door. His whole afternoon had been one long sigh. He'd sighed as he walked dejectedly back to his office, he'd sighed as he turned over page after page of paperwork that he didn't even bother to read, he'd sighed as he found himself chased out of the canteen by the lady with the big backside and he'd sighed as he slumped into his car to head home early.

How had that day come back to haunt him? That moment on the roof had been fairly innocuous, despite the strange way it left Simon feeling, but seen through Gene's eyes it put a different spin on events. Couldn't Gene see how guilty he already felt about losing Keats? How many times he'd cursed himself for it, even though there was no way in the world he could have guessed the exit that the man of the moment would take from the situation? Keats had let his human side come through and Simon was drawn into the moment. He would do anything to go back and change it but there was nothing he could do about it now. Was that one moment of strange weakness really going to destroy his friendship with Gene?

As he opened his door he could already hear the sounds of Kim trying to hide his videos so that he couldn't make her watch any more Red Dwarf. He gave a deep sigh. Despite a few differences in cultural taste, it was nice having a roommate for a while and he knew he'd miss Kim when she went but it was no substitute for coming home to Robin and knowing that, whatever the day had entailed, a hug and a cuppa would make his worries slip away.

"_I really miss you, Rob,"_ he whispered.

He shuffled miserably through the lounge to find a bored Kim sitting on a lumpy cushion that she pretended wasn't hiding a stack of videos. She looked up guiltily as Simon came closer but soon the look on his face left the videos forgotten.

"What's wrong with you?" she frowned, "Don't tell me you tried organising Hunt's spirits in order from _Fairly Palatable_ to _Strip the paint off your window ledges with this_?"

Simon didn't even give a smile. He sank down on the sofa beside her, fishing a tape out from under his bottom and picked up a cushion to distract him from the misery on his mind.

"Just had a shitty day," he said "that's all."

Kim hesitated. She didn't want to pry but didn't want Simon to be left feeling miserable either. Eventually she cocked her head slightly to one side and said,

"Listen, I might be a crappy houseguest but I've got two working ears and a pair of fully-functioning shoulders to cry on. Do you want to talk about it?"

Simon glanced at her, hesitating to reply. He really did want to talk. That moment on the roof had been plaguing and bothering him ever since it occurred, but at the same time he didn't think Kim would really want to talk about Keats. Not after what he had done to her.

"It's alright, Kim," he said quietly, "just had a bit of a… disagreement with Hunt. That's all."

Kim frowned.

"Got to be serious if you're calling him 'Hunt'," she observed. She watched him hang his head a little. This wasn't like the Simon she'd come to know. "Hey, now you're worrying me." She stood up and removed the videos from under the cushion, piled them on the coffee table and sat back down. "There, look, I've even given you all your nerd fodder back." Still she couldn't raise so much as a smile or even an insult from Simon. Something was really wrong. "OK," she threw her hands in the air, "that's it, tell me now.,"

"Kim –"

"Tell me before I open up your tapes and use their innards to make a selection of fashionable belts!"

Simon gave a half-hearted smile and a shrug. He didn't even know where to begin.

"Hunt's not happy with me," he said quietly.

"I gathered that much," said Kim, "question is, why?"

Simon exhaled loudly and leaned back against the soft fabric of the sofa. He stared at the ceiling and tried to pull his thoughts together.

"Remember the hospital roof?" he asked quietly, "when Alex got shot. We went after Keats."

"And you left me half a mile behind with my dodgy shoulder," she said, rubbing the wound.

Simon bit his lip.

"Hunt's blaming me for letting Keats get away," he said.

"What, _now?"_ frowned Kim, "all of a sudden? A week later? That's stupid." She shook her head. "Besides, there was nothing you could do. He just legged it and jumped. I was there too, remember. He might as well blame me."

Simon looked down. That was only half the story and he knew it.

"The thing is," he began, then stopped abruptly. He didn't know how to explain it.

"What?" Kim asked quietly.

The unusually soft tone in her voice caused Simon to glance around at her. There was a look of real concern on her face. He bit his lip and felt his defences start to fall away.

"The thing is," he began again, "there was a bit more to it than that. Something happened. On the roof."

Kim watched him, waiting for him to go on.

"Like what?" she asked eventually.

Simon couldn't quite look her in the eye.

"Kim," he began, "when Keats… when he got to you, I mean, when he made you… made you want to…" He closed his eyes. He was talking himself around in a big fat circle. He wasn't sure how he was going to find the strength to finish his sentence.

"What?" Kim asked nervously.

Finally he looked at her.

"The times he looked at you and put a spell over you," he whispered.

He watched Kim's face fall and instantly regretted bringing it up.

"What about them?" she asked quietly.

Simon bit his lip.

"Nothing," he said, "I'm sorry, it doesn't matter."

"It obviously does," said Kim. She stopped to think about it for a moment and a slow dawn of realisation crept over her. "Oh God, Simon, what are you saying?"

Simon's eyes met Kim's for a second before guilt and embarrassment pulled them away again.

"I think it almost happened to me," he whispered.

The revelation hit Kim like a big wet kipper, right in the face. She stood up and put her hands t the sides of her head as though scared her mind might explode from Simon's words. She turned to look at him, her mouth slightly open.

"Oh my god," she whispered, "I saw you…. When I finally got to the top of the ladder, you were looking at each other and he was… he touched your face."

Simon trembled a little as he finally confronted the memory of what happened on the roof that day. He'd tried so hard not to think about it.

"He went human," he said quietly, "just for a little while. It didn't start out that way… He threw me over the side of the roof and I only just managed to hold on."

Kim's eyes bolted.

"What the fuck?" she cried, "the bastard…"

"But," Simon said quickly, "then something changed." It hurt him to even remember it. "One second he was staring and waiting for me to plummet. The next…" he put his head in his hands. He found it hard to think about it and trying to hide his face helped just a little. "He pulled me back up and saved my life. It was like he changed there and then back into the human part that we almost brought out. He was just staring at me, like he was in shock." He felt his cheeks burning up. "I remember him feeling his heartbeat, and then feeling mine."

"You let him do that?"

"I felt like I was frozen!" Simon protested, "I couldn't move. He trapped me with his eyes."

Kim swallowed.

"They got inside your head," she whispered. It was meant as a statement, not a question, but nevertheless Simon still said,

"Yes."

Kim looked at Simon, his head hanging low and covered by his hands.

"Is that all he did?" she asked.

Simon shook his head slowly.

"He touched the cut on my cheek," his voice was strained, "brushed away the blood." He closed his eyes and shook his head. "It wasn't what he was doing with his hand, Kim, it's what he was doing to my mind."

Kim swallowed again. She felt tears arriving in her eyes unexpectedly. Simon's words had brought back her own experience of Jim Keats getting inside of her mind.

"I know," she whispered.

"I started… _thinking_ things," Simon scrunched his face up at the memory, "he _made_ me think things."

In a move that surprised Simon by its kindness, Kim reached out and put a comforting hand on his arm.

"I know," she said again.

"And then he said… _something,"_ Simon didn't want to enlarge on that any further, "and then, luckily… before…"

Kim gave a grim nod.

"I arrived."

"Yeah."

Kim breathed deeply. Her own memories of Keats and his hypnotic hold left her feeling distressed and anxious inside, but the thought of him extending that hold to Simon too turned her cold.

"It's what he does," she said quietly.

"Gene got the tape from the hospital," Simon told her, "as evidence to help him try to work out where he vanished to when he jumped. He watched the whole thing and now he's blaming me for Keats getting away."

"Hypnosis or not, no one could have expected him to jump," Kim reminded him.

"Gene trusted me," said Simon, "he told me to get Keats and I let him get away."

"He _plunged!"_ cried Kim, "there was nothing you, or me, or anyone could do to stop him."

Simon knew she was right deep down. He knew there should have been no way out for Keats. But he also knew that Gene wasn't going to accept that answer. Not when he'd put so much faith in him.

"Bloody Keats," he mumbled angrily. As far as he could see in his mind's eye there was only one way to put this right and that was to find Keats. If he brought Gene the devil's head on a plate – metaphorically speaking – then surely that would be the way to redeem himself in the eyes of the Guv.

There was no way of knowing where Keats was. No way to be sure he was even still around. But inside his head Simon began to realise this was his project; his way to keep himself busy and his mind away from missing Robin so much. He needed a focus – and this was it. He _would_ find Keats – he didn't know how and he didn't know when but he knew it was what he had to do.

He had a purpose now. It was time to get fighting.


	14. Chapter 7, 2011: Lamentoso

**Chapter Seven: 2011**

As Alex stared out of the window, it felt like a dream. _The day she never thought would come._ It had arrived in a slightly unexpected manner. It had been a week since her 'turn', and in the aftermath of that day all her hopes and plans appeared to be sliding slowly down the toilet bowl. There had been some mild investigation into what caused her seizure but the doctors had put it down to medication levels, adjusted them and thought no more about it.

Alex had found the last week difficult to cope with. Her visit from Robin had left her with more questions than answers. Her mind played over and over the words he'd said that made so little sense.

_"Alex, Gene's not… here."_

What was that supposed to mean? That was all he kept saying, like that was supposed to mean something to her.

_"He's… dead… just like everyone else."_

Those were the words that worried Alex most of all. At first she'd taken them to mean that Gene had died in the interim years between being shot and waking in 2011 which had been agonising enough, but then thinking of his words, 'Just like everyone else', she felt even more confused. _Who_ else? What did he mean 'everyone'? Had a freak nuclear accident wiped out the whole of CID?

What worried her even more than that was the fact that Robin seemed to think she would understand what he meant. There was confusion on his face when she asked him desperately to explain it to her.

_"It's… it's the place we go… when it's over, or we're… hanging in the balance."_

Alex closed her eyes, a wave of emotion welling up inside of her again. That was the line that stayed with her the most strongly since Robin's visit. It was as though the words had no meaning. They made no sense at all. And yet they struck her deeply inside of her chest, making her heart beat harder and acid rise up into her throat as she attempted to make sense of them.

At first she had begged Evan to send Robin in to see her again. She needed him to explain those words to her, to clarify for her where Gene was, whether he was dead or alive and who the others were that he'd referred to as being in the deceased category. However, not only had Evan point blank refused to bring Robin to see her he told her that he was banned from visiting her again. She had tried to protest, more confused by the moment, but Evan's excuse that her seizure proved she wasn't ready for his visits was one she felt unable to argue with in case it set back her 'progress'.

So she had kept her worries and her fears to herself, only crying when the lights were off and the ward closed down for the night. Things were moving and she had to keep focused on that. Inside her anxiety was crushing her but on the outside she kept up her 'mask', day after day, and one week after her seizure her plan finally came to its conclusion.

Evan had been true to his word. In the aftermath of his misguided attempt at protecting her from any more seizures by limiting her visitors he began looking into the viability of taking her out of the hospital's care as soon as possible. Initially the hospital had refused his requests, explaining that her condition was not stable enough yet and that she needed prolonged rehabilitation and therapy but Evan was never a man for giving up easily – that's what made him so successful in his chosen field – so after a few appropriately placed threats of legal action for various things he finally started to get somewhere.

He had thought it out fully. He arranged for a daily visit from a nurse, physical therapy four times a week, adaptions made to his home so that she could get around more easily while her body was still so weak and made an endless supply of promises about all the things she was going to get to do with Molly the moment she arrived home. Alex just smiled and nodded, fixing her mask securely onto her face. She wondered where her _own_ home was. Surely not with Evan? But if she'd been in a coma for a couple of years did she even have a home any more? And even if she did, she didn't know where it would be.

Finally, on the first of February and a month after she had opened her eyes for the first time, Evan walked brightly into the room accompanied by a nurse with a wheelchair.

"_Alex,"_ he sighed with a smile, his open arms suggesting she was about to become the reluctant owner of an Evan-hug. Bracing herself, Alex did her very best not to pull a face as his arms enveloped her in a huge embrace. She closed her eyes to suggest to the nurse that she was delighted to be on her way home, but behind those closes eyelids she rolled her eyes and tried not to give an annoyed sigh.

Finally pulling away, Evan looked at her with relief twinkling in his eyes.

"I can't believe this day has arrived," he said, "you're finally coming home."

A doctor arrived with a clipboard and a slightly miffed expression. He addressed Alex seriously over his spectacles.

"Well now, young lady," he began, "it's time to sign your discharge papers. Now, I want you to think very carefully before we complete this." He gave Evan a slight glare, "after a prolonged coma, hospital care and rehabilitation should run into a far longer period of time. Now, it is true that you have made remarkable progress, and if I hadn't seen you lying in your bed for the last two and a half years I would have thought you'd been comatose for a far shorter time. But you still have a long way to go, and I still recommend that you should stay here so that you can receive that attention around the clock."

Alex took a deep breath. She looked at the doctor and opened her mouth to reply but Evan cut her off and spoke for her.

"With the greatest of respect, _doctor,"_ his tone wasn't very respectful to say the least, "at home she will receive round the clock care from her family."

"With the greatest of respect, _sir,"_ the doctor's professionalism slipped at his annoyance, "you are not a highly trained medical professional."

"I have acquired all the care she will need," Evan told him, "a nurse will be visiting for four hours every day, she has appointments booked with therapists and she will be in a safe and familiar environment to increase the speed of her recovery."

The doctor looked past Evan and right at Alex instead.

"Alex?" he said, "are you really sure about this? Are you sure you want to go home?"

Alex sighed. She wanted to get out of hospital – even if that meant the prospect of experiencing Evan's idea of home décor.

"I'm ready," she whispered.

The doctor hesitated for a moment before finally giving a nod of agreement and signing some papers.

"Very well, Alex," he sighed, "but please remember that if you find it too difficult and you feel you need more care and help while you recover then you can change your mind at any time."

Alex nodded slowly. She wouldn't be doing that. She just needed to escape those four walls, those four clinical walls.

"Yes," she said quietly, "thank you."

Evan made an unwanted attempt at half-walking/half-carrying Alex the three footsteps to the wheelchair which she refused crossly with a flap of her hand.

"Don't be so silly," she said, "I can walk three steps, Gene."

"Evan froze with a frown.

"Gene?" he repeated.

Alex froze, mentally cursing herself for her slip. She had been doing so well at keeping her act going and trying to bury the names of those who were not supposed to exist around her, but her concentration had slipped for a moment.

"Evan," she corrected, "I'm sorry… I was just... just wondering how quickly I can get out of these night clothes and wear something that will make me feel more human. Some jeans, a jumper…"

Evan's frown only increased as she sank into the wheelchair.

"You're not usually the jeans type," he commented, rarely remembering Alex wearing anything but suits or blouses for years.

Alex closed her eyes, the strain of the moment wearing her out.

"Well I'm not going to want to dress up in my Sunday best just to sit and watch the television for the next six months," she said quietly.

Evan gave a little sigh. He hoped Alex's sudden dose of attitude was going to be short-lived, otherwise the journey home was going to feel very long indeed.

"Yes, well," he began a little awkwardly, "I think we should make our way home. Molly's baking you a welcome home surprise."

Alex's heart began to sink. _Molly._ That girl. The one she didn't know. The one she faked the hugs with. The one she had to grit her teeth to say '_I love you'_ to. The world thought Molly was her daughter. Alex couldn't understand what was wrong with the world. It was hard enough seeing Molly in small doses – around her school and hospital visiting times she only had to keep up the act for short periods of time but now the teenager would be around her for most of the day, wondering why her mother was behaving so coldly to her.

_I wish I knew you, Molly,_ she thought to herself, _I really do._

She let herself enter a kind of daze as the doctors and nurses bid her a fond farewell and she found herself wheeled out to Evan's car. The sensation as the open air hit her was unbelievable. The few seconds between passing through the hospital doors and being unceremoniously lumped into the back seat were a time of sheer bliss and unparalleled relief. She closed her eyes and let the biting February air surround her. She'd started to believe she would never feel that air against her skin again.

The door closed beside her and she peered out of the window at the hospital. One very deep sigh expressed her change in emotion from hidden anxiety and confusion to the simple sensation of freedom. She knew that this was only the first step to solving the crushingly enormous mystery surrounding the world and how she had arrived there but now she was out of the hospital's protective sphere she could start to work on finding those elusive answers.

She stared into the distance as Evan started the engine and began the journey home. She tuned out his inane waffling about beds in the study and a pile of magazines the size of Canary Wharf. Mentally she was compiling a list. She wished she had her notebook but it was packed somewhere in her suitcase, and besides her writing skills weren't up to much yet. For now, a mental list would have to do.

She began to compile the list of questions she needed t answer. _Where was she? How could she be in 2011? Where was Gene? Where were Simon and Kim? What happened to Keats? And why did he plague her dreams so often?_

She became so wrapped up in her thoughts that she barely registered the car coming to a halt in a long driveway.

"Home, Alex!" Evan's voice said brightly, pulling her out of her thoughts. She heard the slamming of a door and looked out the window in time to see a teenage girl racing to the car. She braced herself for the hugs she saw as inevitable and waited as Molly wrenched open the door of the car and flung herself in Alex's direction.

"_Mum! I can't believe you're finally home!"_ she cried.

Alex bit her lip and closed her eyes. She hugged the girl back but there was no love behind it. She hated to stay so cold but she felt no connection to Molly. She was already doing enough pretending – she didn't have the strength to feign the love of a mother too.

"Come on, Scrap, leave your mother in one piece until she's out the car at least," Even told Molly as he stepped out of the driver's side and hurried around to help Alex out of her seat. The next few minutes were an awkward blur as she tried to focus on staying upright and creating the illusion that she was physically stronger than she genuinely was. There were some difficult moments with Evan on one side and Molly on the other lugging her through the front door and down the hallway, a blur of _welcome home_ posters that Molly had created filled with hearts and rainbows, and a cake that was only slightly burnt and bore the words _Welcome Home Mum _beneath a sea of sugar stars. Alex couldn't identify why but the sight of the stars made her shudder.

As they sat her down and hauled her legs up onto a rather comfy couch, the sheer strangeness of the room struck Alex finally. The weird, flat television set that took up much of the wall, the bizarre flat, rectangular object laying on a nearby table that looked like an etch-a-sketch and the strange sound system in the corner that was no bigger than a handbag. Where the hell were the tape decks? How did Evan copy his tapes without them? The VCR was looking a bit dodgy too, she noted. She couldn't see how the slot would ever be large enough to fit a tape through.

"I've set up a bedroom for you in here temporarily," Evan told her, "so that you won't have to manage the stairs. The couch will fold into a bed, you've got a television and a DVD player, a table for your food and drink and I've left you my iPad."

"Eye pad?" Alex frowned. She looked carefully at Evan's face. What did he need an eye pad for? Was his eye leaking? Was it some kind of dressing? Did he mean an eye patch? She looked around but she couldn't see one of those either. And besides, why did Evan think she needed one? Her eyes were about the one part of her that were fully functioning.

"I think they came out after mum was shot," Molly told Evan.

It was true enough. Evan realised Molly was right and explained,

"It's a tablet."

Alex frowned again. That didn't really help. How was she going to swallow an eye patch? She was going to need a bloody big glass of water to get _that_ down her neck.

"I'll cut you some cake, mum," Molly said, pulling Alex out of her anxious thoughts. Cake actually did sound good.

"Thank you," she said quietly, giving her first genuine smile in days.

That seemed to buoy Molly and she gave an enormous grin before rushing off to find a plate and a knife. Evan smiled as he watched her go. He and Molly had been through a two and a half year rollercoaster.

"She's done you proud, Alex," he said quietly.

Alex turned her head to Evan. She longed to feel some sort of connection with Molly. Seeing the adoration in the girl's eyes every time she looked at her made her feel like a heartless cow, but she knew she'd never had children so she couldn't understand why there was so much insistence that Molly belonged to her.

"Good," she said quietly. She didn't really know what else to say and felt hideously uncomfortable hearing about someone else's child.

"Most kids would have been knocked for six by what she's been through," Evan continued, "but she never lost hope, not for a moment. She kept up in school, looked after me… well, not in terms of her cooking, obviously…" he smiled, "I think we've done OK." He began to look more serious. "I thought history was going to repeat itself."

Alex looked at him blankly. For all the huffing and puffing he'd done about looking after her and protecting her she still had no idea why a lawyer she'd met back in 1981 was taking care of her in 2011.

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"A young girl left without her parents," Evan sighed. "Peter was no bloody use to us. He sent some money and a get well card just after he learnt of your coma and hasn't been in touch since."

Alex didn't know who Peter was. She didn't really care either.

"Oh," she said quietly.

"But I did the best I could with Molly," Evan assured her, "I looked after her. And she looked after me. But we both needed you back, Alex."

"Oh," Alex said again. She wasn't sure what else there was she could say.

"Here you are, mum!" Molly's voice called out just before the girl entered with a depressingly small slice.

"_Oh."_ This time her 'oh' was full of disappointment.

"Remember the doctor's instructions while you get used to eating again, Alex, small portions and no rich foods," Evan reminded her like a parent.

Alex scowled.

"I was shot in the head, not in my taste buds," she said crossly, then felt guilty and tried to put on a false smile instead. "I mean, it just looks lovely, _Molly._" She used her name pointedly, "maybe I can have some more later."

Evan accepted a larger slice from Molly and took a bite, surreptitiously leaving the burnt part under his napkin. He stared at Alex who was tucking in as though the hospital had been giving her bland sawdust for lunch every day. He couldn't help but feel a little anxious still. Alex's behaviour still seemed a little unusual but he supposed it was to be expected after such an ordeal. At least now she was where he could keep a proper eye on her.

In all honesty, the guilt was still crippling him. He remembered the day he received the first call from Layton. He couldn't believe his ears at first. It took him a few moments to place the name. It seemed an attempted comeback hadn't been going all that well for the man and some of his competition did not take kindly to his arrival on their patch. Now he was on the run from the big boys with a hefty debt attached to his name. Practically penniless, desperate, nowhere left to turn, all he had left was to call in the favours that he was owed from days gone by, and when the favours had all run out he found himself with blackmail as his only option.

Evan had kept the secret for so long. The thought of Alex finding out the truth about how and why her parents died tore him up inside. The guilt had eaten away at him for the best part of 3 decades but still had she never found out. The first call from Layton came so clearly out of the blue that he was too shocked to think straight and quickly gave in to his blackmail demands. They were nominal and Evan could afford them. When the second demand came he realised how stupid he had been. In an attempt to silence Layton for good he offered him twice what he'd asked for in exchange for leaving the city and never contacting himself or Alex again. Like a fool, he believed that when Layton accepted the deal it would be the end of the matter – but soon, when that money was gone, Layton came knocking for a third time and this time he wasn't asking for pocket money.

Evan knew he couldn't afford any more demands. He wasn't lacking for anything but there was only so much he could afford to lose. Layton's behaviour was becoming increasingly erratic and Evan feared that the man would never leave him be. After a lot of serious thought and soul-searching he made a decision – he would have to tell Alex the truth. That was the only way to put a stop to the stupid games and demands of a desperate man.

The last call that he received from Layton was fuzzy; the reception was all over the place and he struggled to make out a word but the second he saw the number on his mobile he had a deep, dark sinking feeling. He answered the call with a sigh.

"Layton, I presume?"

"Yeah, Layton."

"I've heard enough from you for one lifetime."

"Yeah, well, you're gonna have to listen cos I've got a piece of your past standing right here in front of me. Tim and Caroline Price's daughter."

Evan wasn't sure if he heard that correctly, but even if he did then Layton was bluffing. He _had_ to be bluffing. He'd only just left Alex to take Molly home. What was going to happen to Alex in the space of half an hour? It was a bluff. It had to be.

"You have, have you?"

"And I'm gonna tell her the truth. Why her parents died."

Evan took a deep breath. He couldn't hear Layton very well as there seemed to be a fair bit of background noise, but he had already reached a decision.

"I'm not giving into any more of your blackmail, Layton," he said determinedly, "I'm going to tell her everything. Perhaps it's time for the truth to come out."

"Well, that's your choice," were the last words Layton spoke before the call was cut and Evan's phone went dead.

For two and a half years he had lived with the guilt of that bullet every single day. Every time he sat by Alex's bed and saw the scar on her forehead he may as well have fired the gun himself. Despite a lengthy search, Layton was never found. Evan was torn between feeling utter resentment that the man responsible for the condition of his goddaughter was never brought to justice and feeling immense relief that – as Layton had vanished – the reason behind the shooting was never revealed.

Some months ago, when a certain madman by the name of Jim Keats attempted to kill the comatose Alex in her hospital bed it brought Alex's original plight back into the public's awareness again Evan had wondered whether Layton would finally be caught but he seemed to have found a way to disappear from sight permanently.

Now, with all the history behind Alex's shooting and coma, her eventual awakening and recuperation had made it into the news. And why wouldn't it? At last, some good news to report amongst all the death and destruction. _Police Psychologist Alex Drake Wakes From Coma!_ Brilliant!

Brilliant for all but one little thing. Alex's name appearing in the press brought to Evan the fear that one man in particular may have seen those headlines. Now, if Layton should wish to, he would have a double dose of blackmail to hold over Evan's head – the truth about the Price's and Evan's direct responsibility in her shooting.

He had almost lost her to a car bomb. He had almost lost her to a bullet. He had almost lost her to Keats with a pillow. Evan couldn't risk losing Alex in a totally different way. With no wife or children of his own, Alex and Molly were as close to family as he had and the truth would see an end to that for good. He hadn't been able to protect Alex from that bullet but he would do anything to protect her from hearing the truth and learning about his culpability in the two most traumatic events of her life, even if that meant wrapping her in cotton wool.

The moment Alex woke up he was torn between the joy and relief of finally getting her back after such a long time and the sudden panic that – now she was awake – the truth could come out at any time, through any avenue. No one knew exactly what happened after Layton hung up the phone. Did he tell Alex the truth before he shot her? Would she remember? Did she even remember Layton? She certainly seemed to have a lot of memory gaps so it was quite possible she didn't. And what about when she had recovered enough for the police to ask her about her shooting? What if that brought more information to light, or even the capture of Layton? And all her friends on the force were an instant threat too – with access to the records they could become curious, decide to do a little overtime and put together some clues that Evan would rather never saw the light of day.

Watching Alex's tired eyes close as she gradually fell asleep on the sofa, Evan knew he couldn't keep her away from the world forever. He couldn't keep her under lock and key – at some point the outside world was going to filter in. At least with her under his care at home he had bought himself some time.

He watched Molly pull a blanket over Alex as she slept.

"Sweet dreams, mum," he heard her say.

Evan felt that guilt building up again. Sweet dreams were one thing he hadn't had in years. One very heavy guilty conscience had made sure of that.

He got to his feet and took a deep breath.

"Come on, Molly," he began, "let's let your mum rest a while."

As they left her alone and gently closed the door, he took one last look back at his goddaughter. He'd come close to destroying her life twice, in two very different ways.

"I won't let the truth destroy you now," he whispered sadly, and just prayed that was a promise he could keep.


	15. Chapter 7, 1995: Bellicoso

**Chapter Seven: 1995**

Two days.

It had been two long days since Gene used his special techniques of persuasion to convince Alex's doctors to allow her to leave the hospital. As soon as he had the confirmation that she was two days away from coming home with him, the time started to drag terribly. He just wanted her back with him, away from the hospital with its tests and its prodding and poking. He'd been scared for her state of mind and had been very anxious for the first few days. She'd seemed cold; her amnesia had been terrifying and he wondered if everything was ever going to be the same again.

But since then she had been doing so much better. He hoped that leaving the hospital would be the push she needed to really bring her back to the Bolly he missed so much.

"_Gene!"_

Gene stopped in his tracks and closed his eyes, cursing silently. That was the last thing he needed. He was only moments away from heading out to collect Alex and take her home. More than that, he was on a promise. Now he had Shoebury chasing him down the corridor.

It had also been two long days since Gene had watched the footage from the hospital roof. For two long days he had gone out of his way to avoid Simon as much as possible and any brief meetings in corridors had been full of one sided conversations from Simon who had tried again and again to explain what the tape had shown. Gene had no interest in that. He had no interest in excuses, or the technicalities of what he had or hadn't seen. As far as he was concerned there was no reason Simon couldn't have slapped a pair of handcuffs on him the second his feet were firmly planted back on the roof.

"What do you want, Shoe-Boy?" Gene narrowed his eyes and turned around to face Simon. Simon looked crestfallen. He hadn't heard one of Gene's shoe-related insults in a while and thought they were a thing of the past. It seemed his hopes were a little premature.

"Uh…," he tried to ignore that and get back to the subject he wanted to approach, "Kim said Alex is coming home today."

Gene had forgotten that Kim was still bunking down on Simon's sofa for the foreseeable future, at least until Keats was found and safely locked away somewhere. She didn't feel safe on her own and Gene couldn't blame her.

He had told Kim about Alex's imminent release when she arrived for work that morning. Her sick leave was over and with relief she managed to escape the four nerdy walls of Simon's flat at last. Arriving in gene's office bright and early that morning she had attempted to give a loud rendition of _Return of the Mack_ but since the song wouldn't be released until the following summer Gene just thought she needed a new coat for the winter and told her to do her shopping in her own time.

"Yes," he told Simon, "I'm going to collect her now and I will be taking the rest of the day off. So you can walk the corridors safely. You won't be seeing the likes of me until tomorrow."

Simon's heart sank. He desperately wanted Gene to understand what had happened from his point of view.

"I just… just wanted to know if there was anything I could do to help?" he asked quietly, "does she need any shopping? I could pick up some food for you both? Does she need any clothes?"

Gene stared at Simon. His eyes were dark and angry.

"I'm surprised you can get yer tongue out of Keats's backside long enough to get anything done," he said.

Simon frowned, his heart sinking even deeper.

"That's not fair, Gene," he said with a hint of anger approaching his voice, "I know I failed but nothing happened with Keats. I didn't know he was going to jump and if I did I would have acted as soon as I could. I don't know how many times I can apologise for this."

"Try shutting that flapping piece of skin on yer face and find that trigger-happy flying squirrel, then maybe we can talk about it," Gene said bluntly and turned to leave. He wasn't going to waste any more time or energy on an argument with Simon. It was time to collect Alex and spend a day with the promise of silk sheets and spreadable chocolate.

~xXx~

Two days.

It had been two long days since Alex had managed to persuade Gene to force the doctors into agreeing to send her home. She had spent two long, dreadful days cosying up to a figment of Sam Tyler's imagination who had somehow managed to sneak into her own head. She gave a lot of fake smiles and tuned out often, whenever the man started talking about things that included edible underwear, spreadable chocolate or the back seat of his Fiat.

At the times she spent tuning out, she tried to run over Sam Tyler's story in her mind. The brief meetings they'd had, all the tapes, the notes – anything that could help her, anything that could hold the key to getting home.

She recalled how he used to hear voices while he was in his coma; that he would hear noises from the hospital or that he would see images on the television. Sometimes something would come over the radio. Other times there would be a poster or an advert on the side of a bus. She had been looking for all of these things – signs, voices, messages – but there had been nothing. That was worrying. It was almost like there was nothing to come through at all. Did that mean she was dead? Why else were the bleeps of her life sustaining equipment not filtering through?

She wasn't going to give up though. She knew she had to fight, and fight she would. The first step of the battle was going to be getting out of hospital. The second was getting strong. And the third was getting out of any situation that involved spreadable chocolate.

The sound of doctors getting annoyed and calling for colleagues to perform the removal of various objects from their noses caused Alex to suspect that Gene was already on the premises. She laid down the notebook she'd been scribbling in, pushed back her hair and took a deep breath.

"Time for phase two of _Operation Alex Escape Plan_," she mumbled, then put on a broad, fake smile and fluttered her eyelashes.

"I hope you are prepared to experience the bedside manner of the Gene Genie."

Inwardly Alex cursed. She had been right. Gene _was _on the premises.

"Of course," she said, trying not to gag on her words. _Of all the people,_ she thought to herself. All those people Sam Tyler spoke about, it would have to be Gene Hunt that her subconscious raked up for her. Even Phyllis would have been preferable to this.

A doctor followed Gene into the room, clipboard in hand and pen up nose. Alex frowned for a moment and glanced at Gene who was looking a little guilty about the pen part. The doctor extracted the writing implement from his nostril, glared at Gene then start to jot a few things down.

"Well now, Alex, the time has come to say goodbye."

Alex gave a sigh inside. She hoped it was only the hospital she was saying goodbye to and not her life in the real world.

"Good," she said quietly.

"Now, there are some conditions," the doctor warned her, "you will need to return every other day for a check-up and therapy."

"I'm going to need _years _of therapy after this," she muttered to herself, glancing at Gene.

"Pardon?"

Alex didn't realise she'd spoken out loud.

"Erm… therapy. Check-ups. Yes. Got it."

"Your dressing will need to be changed at your next appointment," the doctor told her, "and you will need to keep it dry and clean."

_Good_, thought Alex, _that counts out Gene Hunt's intended bath time plans._

"That's fine," she said.

"Alright," the doctor told her, "I will organise your medication and then you will be able to leave. Any worries or concerns, just call us."

Alex gave a genuine smile at last. A smile of relief. A smile heralding the taste of freedom ahead.

"Thank you," she said.

The doctor nodded to her, acknowledging her words, then left to round up her tablets. She became increasingly aware that the doctor's exit had left her with Gene and his come-to-bed eyes as company. That wasn't a combination she wanted to experience.

"So," Gene began to edge closer. Alex tried to resist the urge to edge further away, partly because she didn't want to blow her story now and partly because she didn't want to fall out of bed, "is my memory letting me down or do I remember hearing something about silk sheets and your bed when you get out of 'ere?"

Alex glanced at him. The look in his eye was one she really didn't want to see but she gave a genuine smile as she realised how close she was to escaping the hospital.

"Oh, you've got something to look forward to when I get home," she said.

Gene raised an eyebrow.

"Is that right, Bolly?"

"Oh yes," she nodded and narrowed her eyes slightly, "I think you'll be surprised."

Gene felt anticipation and excitement gathering down below.

"_Oh_ yes."

"Mm-hmm," Alex smiled broadly, "It's a surprise you will never forget. I promise you that much."

Bells and whistles of excitement were going off in Gene's head. A surprise he'd never forget. He could hardly wait.

~xXx~

A pile of blankets and pillows landed at Gene's feet.

"What the flaming hell's this?"

Alex smiled.

"You're on the sofa."

Gene stared at Alex. Those words had no meaning.

"In what way am I _'on the sofa'_?"

"Tonight," Alex smiled sweetly, "and every night."

Gene stared at her. He breathed in deeply and shifted his weight from one foot to the other, then he rubbed his temples.

"See, Bolly, I think you've forgotten that you've got a perfectly cosy double bed through there.

"Yes, '_Gene'_," she waggled her fingers, air-quoting his name, "I am well aware of that. I just found it while I was looking for these." She kicked the blankets and pillows. "That double bed is where _I_ will be sleeping. My subconscious might have me shacked up with a dinosaur but I won't be letting him share my bed as well!"

Gene, for the first time in his life, was struck dumb. He couldn't think of a single word to say. Not even a smart one. He tried hard to work out where things had changed. There was the happy smile as she climbed into the car, the wave to the doctor seeing her off, and then… what happened next? Oh yeah, he'd made some kind of comment about his gear stick and she'd pretended to go to sleep.

As soon as they'd stepped through the door of her flat things had launched into a downwards spiral. Asking where her own bedroom was had struck him as a little strange in the first place, then demanding he stayed out of it while she went to look for something had seemed even weirder but he still lived in hope that the _'something'_ she was seeking were some edible undies.

The pile of blankets had been somewhat larger – and less tasty – than the surprise he had been expecting.

"I think you'd better tell me what's going on here, Bols," he said, his eyes narrowing in a mix of anxiety and anger.

"What's going on here, _Gene,_ is that if you call me Bowls one more time I will _go_ into that kitchen, _find_ every bowl I own and smash them into your blanket and pillow one at a time to give you a _very_ uncomfortable night's sleep!" she took a step towards the bedroom door and glanced over her shoulder. "Now, I might not be able to ban you from my current state of psychosis but I can ban you from my bedroom. So I suggest you stay out here while I spend some quality time with my notebook." She raised her eyebrows and gave a nod to confirm her standing on this matter, then stepped into her bedroom and closed the door before Gene could reply.

Not that he was going to.

There were no words to say to that. No words at all.

In a state of utmost confusion and a hesitant but increasing sense of panic he sank down onto the sofa. Where the hell had this come from? Why was the 1981 Alex back again? Air quoting him, leaving him to make a bed on the couch and threatening him with crockery? It made no sense, no sense at all.

He put his head in his hands and closed his eyes, waiting for an answer to strike him but none did. The only thing that _did_ strike him was a pair of boxers that Alex found in her bed and threw out the doorway in disgust.

"Oh, bloody hell," he muttered, even though there was no one there to hear it, "someone's pressed the rewind button again."

His mind tried desperately to run over the possibilities but when it came down to it there really wasn't an alternative. Somehow Alex had either lost her memory again or someone had pressed 'reset' in her head. There was no doubt in his mind that the Alex who had consigned him to the sofa was not the same Alex he'd shared the last 15 years of his life with. This was Alex back at square one.

The question was, how had she been reset to 'zero'? And, the further question that occurred was how to forward the tape fifteen years on again and get his own Alex back?

Gene had no idea. He didn't have any answers. He needed to organise his thoughts - and Alex was the one with all the notepads.

For now he would just have to try to get his head around this and then try to work out where to go from there. In the meanwhile, he could only hope his blankets would remain crockery-free – and pray that his Bolly would be back one day.


	16. Chapter 8, 2011: Drammatico

**Chapter Eight: 2011**

Alex slept for hours. Just the process of getting out of hospital and keeping up the pretence with Evan and Molly had exhausted her and by the time she woke up it was the early hours of the next morning. She pulled the blanket around her shoulders and looked around the dim room. She felt so lost and out of place. She hated to admit it but it was even worse than being in the hospital.

There were a pile of magazines beside the couch so to try to give her mind something to focus on she picked one up, switched on the lamp standing on the table beside her and began to flick through but it quickly began to make her feel worse. It was like reading about some strange land where everything was different. The celebrities who graced the pages were people she had never heard of and the ones she remembered from her own time were more or less out of commission. And why were pop stars wearing dresses made of meat?

She actually felt relieved when a trail of footsteps led to the doorway and Evan poked his head around.

"I thought I saw a light on in here," he said.

She gave a half-hearted smile.

"I'm sorry I slept for so long," she said.

Evan crossed the room and sat down beside her.

"You clearly needed it," he said, "We didn't even have a chance to convert the couch onto a bed."

"It was still more comfortable than the stupid thing in the hospital," Alex commented. She swore one night it tried to swallow her up whole when the lower half rose unexpectedly from an electrical malfunction.

"Well," Evan began, checking his watch, "I will be leaving in a few minutes. I know it's early but I have some paperwork left over from yesterday that I need to finish. Molly will be up soon. She'll help you with your breakfast, then Tina's mother will be picking her up to take her to school at eight."

Alex blinked. Evan may as well have been talking a foreign language.

"Ok," she said quietly.

"Your nurse will be here at nine," Evan continued, "she will help you to wash and put some clean pyjamas on and get your lunch before she leaves at one."

Alex sighed. She hoped with her exit from the hospital the embarrassment of the bathing routine would be gone but, no, apparently she was still not considered suitably recovered to bathe herself.

"Alright," she said quietly.

"I will be back around three," Evan told her, "you might like to try to get a little sleep before I get home so that you don't tax yourself too much for one day."

Alex breathed deeply. She wasn't sure which was going to be the taxing part – the embarrassing, assisted bathing schedule or watching the clock and dreading Evan's return.

"I'll try," she said quietly.

Evan stood up, collected his briefcase and walked to the door.

"Take care, Alex," he said, "I'll be home before you know it."

_Oh goody!_ Alex's brain thought sarcastically.

She watched him leave the room, then listened as he continued to get ready and finally she heard the door shutting behind him. She had to admit that she was relieved just to know he was no longer on the premises. She would feel even better when Molly was out if the way and she had the place to herself. _One down and one to go._

~x~

_Why did I ever want to leave the hospital?_

Alex really wasn't sure. Being cared for by the private nurse was 100% worse than being in that place. At least in hospital she was left alone for long periods of time to bond with her notebook. The private nurse had been hired to give her 1 on 1 attention, and that's what she had done, for four long, miserable hours.

At first Alex had tried to hide and ignore the doorbell, but soon found Evan had given the nurse her own key. Then she pretended to be asleep to escape the new variation of the familiar bedbath, but the nurse ignored her and came at her with a big sponge anyway. Being called _'dear'_ and asked if she needed a glass of water every five minutes made Alex wish another bullet would hit her in the head. Finally, at around midday the nurse had offered up the ultimate insult by serving Alex a bowl of warming cabbage soup for lunch. She was already gagging at the thought of it, let alone the smell.

"Of course, that's not going to have me sounding like a foghorn all night," she mumbled to herself as she forced down spoonful after spoonful of the liquid.

Finally one o clock arrived and the nurse bid her farewell – until tomorrow.

"_Every day!"_ Alex cried as the nurse made her exit, "I have to go through this every day?"

She stared at the clock for a moment, watching the second hand inch slowly around. There were a couple of hours left until Evan would be home. Of course, he had recommended a 'sleep' in the interim time. She sounded an audible _'Pah!'_ as she thought about that concept. She wanted to make the most of every moment of alone time.

Pulling herself slowly to her feet she switched on the television and found the remote. She thought it couldn't be that complicated. It couldn't be that different to the cable box they had at the station. _49 channels and fuck all to watch,_ as Gene had always put it. She smiled at the memory as she began to flick through channel after channel.

_Where have all these programmes come from?_ She thought in confusion as the channels seemed to go on and on with no end. And where was Neighbours? Where the _bloody hell _was Neighbours? She had fifteen years to catch up on and it wasn't bloody on!

"Hang on... channel _five?"_

What was it doing on there? And what the hell _was_ Channel Five anyway?

_Click… click…click…_ channel after channel after channel… she was into the 200s when she began to pick up repetitive strain injury from flicking through them all.

Eventually she threw the remote to the ground in frustration and went looking for a video to watch instead. There seemed to be a serious lack of them. She couldn't understand why. Maybe there was already one in the VCR?

Crawling on her hands and knees she crawled closer to the box beneath the TV set and stared at it. The video slot seemed a little small. She'd noted that the day before. It had to be her imagination, surely. It wasn't like they were going to have reinvented _videos_ in the last fifteen years. It wasn't like Betamax was going to make a valiant comeback attempt!

She located what appeared to be the eject button so she pressed it, waiting for a tape to emerge but instead an empty tray came from within. She frowned at it. Had someone shoved a strange piece of plastic in there by mistake? On closer inspection it reminded her of a CD tray, but during here close-up examination she had managed to lose her hand to eye co-ordination and ended up snapping the damn thing. She bit her lip guiltily. What the hell was Evan going to say?

She slowly got to her feet and looked around. The time was heading closer to half past one now. She had an hour and a half maximum. She began to wonder what she was doing wasting her time on TV and videos when there was work to be done. She needed to find Gene. She was already behind schedule.

She sat down for a moment to regain her energy and took a few deep breaths to settle her emotions. What was the best avenue to take? What was the best way to find Gene? How would she have tracked down an officer back home? _On the station's database,_ she thought to herself. There was a way to get in from computers outside of the station, she was sure of it. She remembered… what was it? Plugging it into the telephone line… oh, yes – the _internet_… they'd just put the system online the year before! Perfect!

"Now," she narrowed her eyes and scanned the room, "where would Evan keep a computer? He's got to have one, surely."

She thought that there would be one in the study but there was no sign of any such thing so she figured he must have moved it while she slept there. Holding onto the furniture for extra support she slowly made her way out of the room and tried a few other places. There was no sign of one in the lounge and the dining room was computer-free too, but she discovered something curious in the kitchen. That is, something even more curious than the leftover cabbage soup, sitting on the stove, waiting to be reheated for her dinner that night. Just the sight of it made her guts squeak and grumble and her taste buds reel in horror so she _accidentally _lost her balance near to it and, whoops – spilled the whole pan down the sink.

"_Accident waiting to happen,"_ she said casually, then turned her attention to the item that had caught her eye initially.

On the kitchen table there stood a very strange contraption that looked a bit like the result of an illicit love affair twixt book and computer. A thin construction with a screen on one part and a keyboard on the other.

"A computer you can fold up and put in your bag!" she commented.

She spotted a button that looked like it might do something useful so she pressed it and the screen lit up. She jumped a little, startled by the intricacy of the graphics before her. She'd never seen anything quite like it before. As she watched the desktop appear she reeled in horror at the sight of a picture of Evan being used as the wallpaper from a photoshoot he'd taken part in the previous year for _What Beard?_ Magazine.

Gradually she managed to recover from that shock and gathered herself together long enough to focus her efforts. The operating system looked a bit weird. It was no _Windows '95_ that was for sure. But nevertheless she recognised the little blue lower-case 'e' and knew that was the first step to getting into the system so she double-clicked on it and silently lamented the lack of Netscape while reminiscing about Gene's lack of technical skill. She was sure it was only a few days ago he had to ask Simon how to open a file. What would he make of this futuristic nonsense?

She remembered how to access the database from outside the station and typed the address in the bar at the top of the page, but was slightly disturbed to find that the page was _'redirecting'_ and went to a whole new address. More disturbing than that, she found her login was invalid. She tried it three, four times to be sure she had the right combination but it had no memory of her.

Starting to feel anxious and disorientated now she tried to search instead and opened up her favourite search engine, _Ask Jeeves._

She was surprised to see it redirect to _'ask'_ for a start. Then she was surprised by the strange layout. _Then_ she almost had a heart attack when she saw the makeover Jeeves himself had been given.

"What has happened to his _nose?"_ she cried, "You could hang your coat on that!"

She composed herself enough to take a deep breath and type _'Gene Hunt'_ into the search box. If some strange accident _had_ occurred to wipe out the whole of CID then surely there would be some old news reports about it. But the only things that came up were a ton of links about genetic mapping and a list of _"Might Jeeves Suggest?" _options down the right hand side which, to be fairly frank, Alex thought was a little bit snooty and an unwelcome interference. Besides, none of them seemed appropriate and most the suggestions seemed to relate to David Bowie songs.

She took a deep breath, starting to notice how much her heart rate was starting to increase, then decided to try one last avenue of research. With just a moment of hesitation she typed '_Simon Shoebury' _into the box, clicked 'search' and waited.

Then her world started to fall apart.

Link after link, story after story – there were hundreds… no,_ thousands_ of them. They started with '_Detective Chief Inspector injured by falling computer equipment_,' then moved onto, _'DCI Hailed Hero after Madman Attacks Hospital Patient,' _then '_Hero Shoebury dies after high-speed chase'_ and finally '_Police Inspector Acquitted over Death of Colleague and Partner.'_

Her eyes grew wide and fearful and her fingers worked overtime, clicking one link after another, reading one story then the next, then the next, each one chilling her more deeply than the last. None of it was real. None of it made any sense. No sense at all. There was too much that seemed ridiculous. She's met Simon way back in 1985 – how could he have been born in 1978? And if he only died a few months ago then how could he have been 32 when he was already around that age in 1995?

And – dead. _Dead!_ No, he couldn't be. He couldn't… the story didn't make sense – how could he and Robin have been chasing Nailer in 2010 when he was locked away? When had he been released? And then there was Keats.

Jim Keats… he'd shot her in 1995. She remembered that much. Why was he trying to suffocate her in 2010? The whole story about Keats made no sense, but it chilled her to the bone. A very dark feeling washed over her. Despite all the pages about his apparent attack on her on 2010 there were none about him shooting her in Kim's hospital room. Why was that?

Her tongue ran across her dry lips as she stared at the screen. Although her heart was already racing and nausea rippled through her throat from the stories she'd read there was one more search she had to make. She needed to know what happened after Keats fired his gun and sent her into a coma.

With a little hesitation her fingers danced across the keys to commit to the query before she could stop them.

_Alex Drake Shot._

Search.

Reams of search results appeared, news reports, articles – they arrived on her screen with little thought for the effect they would have on the woman reading.

Her eyes skimmed the articles, one by one. None of it made sense. _None_ of it. 2008. Layton. Boat. It wasn't real, _none _of it was. She was shot in 1995, in a hospital room, by Jim Keats! Who the hell was _Layton?_ Whoever he was, he'd never been found, apparently. Her head started hurting badly, the crushing pressure of the two conflicting worlds starting to build as pressure inside her mind, the truth figuring no part in her memory of the shooting.

She couldn't understand it, not for a moment. The conflicting years, Simon dying, Gene not existing – it all built up inside of her with a wave of terrifying energy until she jumped to her feet with a horrifying scream and turned around where she ran straight into Evan. She hadn't even heard him come home early.

"Alex!"

Alex tried desperately to push right past him and run, run far away as the confusion burned through her mind but her body was still weak and Evan held her firmly.

"Let me go!" she cried.

"What on earth is the matter?" Evan cried in alarm.

"Let me _go!"_

"Calm down! Alex, calm down – you'll give yourself another seizure!"

"Just let me go!"

"Not until you calm down and tell me what's going on!"

Alex looked at Evan. Her expression was fraught with confusion and fear.

"I don't _know_ what's going on!" she cried, "none of this makes sense!"

"_What_ doesn't?"

Alex's eyes were darting from side to side, her mind too mixed up and emotional to think straight.

"Where's Gene?" she cried, "where's Simon? Why do those stories say I was shot in two thousand and eight?"

"Alex…"

"Nineteen ninety _five,_ Evan!" she cried, "I was shot in nineteen ninety five!" Tears began to flow now, her emotions reaching their peak, "I want Gene! Where is he? Where _is_ he?"

Her body began to collapse. All her energy had been poured into her screams and her tears, leaving Evan to catch her and to carry her awkwardly into his study where he returned her onto the couch and backed away a little. Her tears and anguished sobbing scared him inside. He had no idea how to help her or what to do. He wasn't very good at anything concerning emotion. In his profession he had to be so neutral and removed from the situation that he was unable to allow himself to think more emotionally about anything.

Seeing her in such a state terrified him. This wasn't the strong Alex Drake he knew. Her words struck him with fear, too. It was sounding reminiscent of the kind of thing she said after she first woke up, the things that made him fear for her sanity. Now here she was once again, filling him with anxiety.

At a loss for anything else to do he sat by her side as she cried numbly into the fabric of the couch and stroked her hair, rather reminiscent of the way he'd soothed her as a child after every nightmare that ripped her sleep to shreds. Finally, when she was so exhausted that she couldn't stay awake for a second longer, she slipped into a deep sleep and Evan found himself able at last to move away from her and leave her in the room alone to recuperate while he tried to work out where the hell to go from here.

She'd scared him. She had thoroughly scared him. This was not the Alex Drake he knew. So who the hell _was_ she?

~x~

As she slowly opened her eyes, Alex realised that the room was growing dim again. She blinked a few times. How long had she been asleep? She didn't even remember lying down.

As she glanced at the clock and saw that the time was heading on towards half past four she suddenly remembered the events of a couple of hours earlier and a horrid sense of despair rose inside her. She could hear a voice outside; low and muffled. Tiptoeing to the door, she opened it just a crack and could hear Evan's voice a little more clearly.

"_That's the problem, doctor,"_ his hushed tone began, _"physically she's doing well… almost too well – I hadn't expected her to be that strong! But mentally…"_ he gave a deep, pained sigh, _"I didn't know what it is… it's like when she had first woken up. She's saying a lot of things that don't make sense. She's got this delusion that she is living in nineteen ninety five. She… she keeps asking for someone called Gene, and she doesn't really seem to know who we are."_ There was a long, long pause. _"I do understand that, doctor, but until she got home she seemed to be doing rather well. Now it's as though she's gone back in time." He_ sighed again. _"She seems to have more than amnesia. This is like… like a personality swap. She's not herself, doctor."_ He paused. "_This hurts me very, very deeply but I think we need to call in some specialist help on this one."_ Another pause. "_Yes, I know the legal standpoint of course, but what is involved with sectioning in terms of her medical care?"_

Not for the first time since awakening from her coma, Alex's world stopped turning.

With her heart leaping into her mouth in a silent scream that wouldn't leave her she backed away into the study and began to pant for breath. She felt a panic attack about to come on and couldn't let it. Had to fight it. Needed to stay strong. She began to breathe deeply and slowly, forcing herself to keep as calm as she could. Otherwise she would stand no chance of surviving this ordeal.

She looked around the room. All she had were her purple silken pyjamas and a pair of slippers. One of Evan's suits was draped over a chair in the corner of the study. It wasn't ideal but it would do for now. She grabbed the jacket and threw it over her pyjamas – perhaps the pyjamas would just look like an unusual suit. It was no worse than the one Malcolm used to wear, after all.

This was it. She had no other option. She had to leave and she had to do it now. With nothing to her name but the nightclothes she stood in, Alex slipped from the room and backed along the corridor, then quietly slipped the chain from its secure position and opened the front door. With one last glance behind her she gently closed the door on Evan and her 2011 escape plan.

There was only one place she could go now. She could only pray she would find a way to get there in one piece, and before Evan found her first. Otherwise her number was up – and she was pretty sure that number wouldn't be _1995._

~xXx~

"What do you mean you can't give me any information?" Robin scowled at the phone as though the person on the other end could see his expression, "no, I'm not the next of kin, I just want to know how she's doing!" He paused, his expression growing more confused by the second, "How can that be? She's only been awake for –" he trailed off as a knocking sounded urgently at his door, "well, thanks for a whole heap of nothing, anyway," he concluded and put down the phone.

As her began to walk through the hallway the knocking came again, more insistently this time.

"Aright, I'm coming, I'm coming," he muttered as he quickened his pace to a jog. Reaching the door, he opened it a little cautiously and a body fell through almost immediately. He gave a shriek of surprise. He staggered backwards as he caught the falling person in his arms and tried to keep them upright, and it took him a good few moments to be able to take a close enough look to see who had made such a dramatic entrance.

"_Alex?"_

A pair of terrified, exhausted eyes looked at him.

"_Help me," _her voice was almost inaudible,_ "help me, help me, please help me…"_

Robin tried to keep her upright with one arm while he closed the door with the other. A wave of panic spread through his body but he tried to keep it under control. The woman in his arms needed calm and stability right then, her face awash with worry.

"I've got you," he said, straining a little to hold her up. He was more used to handling police dogs on leads than fully grown women falling in his arms, "I've got you, Alex."

As he half carried and half dragged her through to the lounge, the exhaustion of her hunt for Robin's flat caught up with the weak Alex and, closing her eyes, she found herself drifting into a short and shallow sleep to bring to her as much recovery to her limbs and energy as her body could allow. For the first time since she woke on New Year's Day she finally felt like she was in safe hands.

For Robin's part, he felt a sense of relief too. Something hadn't sat right with him since Alex came out of her coma and something – plus some_one _- had been keeping them apart. Whatever it was that Alex needed his help with he hoped and prayed he could provide that support because his feelings about the situation were very dark indeed.

This was the beginning; only the beginning, and they both knew it.


	17. Chapter 8, 1995: Doloroso

**Chapter Eight: 1995**

Gene 's eyes creaked open as the light filtered in from the road outside. He blinked a few times and gave a long, deep groan. The couch had not been his friend. Despite several attempts at sneaking into Alex's bedroom he had been unsuccessful. His last attempt had been rewarded with a slipper in the head. He still had a tender patch where it struck him.

Slowly he sat upright and snapped his neck back into place with a sickening series of creaks and cracks. He breathed in deeply and rubbed his chin. How had things changed so much? What the hell was going on? This was supposed to have been the greatest night of the year – finally having Bolly back home after her ordeal – he had plans._ Big_ plans. Big plans involving spreadable chocolate and edible underwear. Now those plans had disappeared down the toilet bowl.

He got to his feet and looked at the clock before swearing profusely. He was already late for work. There was no time to indulge in the three 'S's – a shit, a shower and a shave. There wasn't even time to choose _one '_S' and get that over with.

He stared at Alex's closed bedroom door. Despite everything that happened on that fateful day before he had to give it one more chance. He slowly walked across the room and paused outside her room.

"Bolly?" he rapped on the door, "Got to go to work. Am I wasting my breath offering you breakfast before I go?" he paused and listened but no reply came. "I know you're awake. I can hear you scribbling in yer notebook."

There was a hesitant pause, then Alex's voice called out,

"_If I want breakfast I will make it in my own time, when I have this flat to myself and you and your interesting collection of crockery-based nicknames are well away from me."_

Gene began to scowl. His patience was wearing thin.

"Fine," he said, "I'll leave you to waggle yer fingers all over the place Bols. _Alex._" He tutted crossly as he began to walk away and then added under his breath, "Sulky drawers. Misery arse."

"_I heard that"_ Alex's voice called out.

"_You were meant to!" _Gene lied and slammed the front door.

~xXx~

A foul mood that vaguely resembled Gene Hunt stormed through CID that morning, sending people fleeing left, right and centre, His mere presence brought fear to the hearts of those who saw his thunderous expression.

"Guv!" he heard Kim call to him from across the room, "How's DCI Drake?"

As Gene stopped walking and turned to stare at her she instantly regretted speaking before seeing his expression.

"I don't know," he began angrily, "why don't you take a visit to cloud cuckoo la-la land and see if you can find her marbles? Then you can ask her yourself!"

Kim was a little taken aback by his reaction.

"I was only asking," she frowned, "keep your latte on!"

In response, gene slammed the door of his office so hard that every wall in CID shook. At least two pictures fell off the wall and one of Kim's piercings fell out. Kim felt rather scared by this sudden turn of events. She'd seen Gene angry before but this was something new.

"Guessing someone didn't get any last night then, she commented.

~xXx~

Alex threw open the doors of the wardrobe and picked through the contents with distaste. So she really _was_ stuck in the nineties. She pulled out a couple of outfits and frowned at them severely.

"I'm going to look like I'm auditioning for a walk-on part in _Friends!"_ she said.

Peering carefully out of the bedroom to check that Gene really had gone, she slipped into the bathroom and had a rather short, careful shower, doing her best to avoid her wound and anything that the doctor had warned her to keep clean and dry, then dressed and tried hard not to look at the outfit too closely. If she narrowed her eyes she could just about make it look acceptable in dim light.

There were two toothbrushes over the sink. As she didn't know which was hers and which was Gene's she decided to skip the teeth-cleaning completely and buy a new toothbrush later instead.

She walked back into her bedroom and breathed in deeply, looking around. Now she was out of the hospital and Gene had stopped trying to whisper sweet nothings through the keyhole it was time to get on with the serious business of getting home.

"Need to look for clues," she said quietly to herself as she began to look through drawers and boxes around the room, "anything that might let me know what I'm doing here." She lifted a TV guide that was sitting beside the small set in the room. _"November, December… nineteen ninety five…"_ she gave a sigh, "what am I doing here? Sam Tyler… he went back to a significant year from his past. What would I be doing in nineteen ninety-five? What was so special about this the first time around?"

She took a pile of papers from a draw beside the bed and began to leaf through them.

"December… Christmas… new home… just moved in…" she paused as a memory struck her and forced her eyes closed with tears. "_Molly._"

Just thinking of her daughter brought an overwhelming sadness to her. It started as a dark spot in her mind but spread through every part of her body, making her limbs heavy and her eyes red.

"_Molly… you were conceived…"_ she whispered. One tear began to fall from her eye, travelling slowly down her cheek. It tickled her skin before falling eventually from her chin into her lap, landing on a sheet of paper.

There was only one event in her life that had been significant around that time. As badly as her relationship and marriage had ended, Alex knew that she had one thing to thank Peter for. Her precious daughter; the girl she missed so badly that every fibre of her body ached to be reunited with her. She breathed in deeply, trying to get her emotions in check. She could see images of Molly dancing through her mind. That was all she wanted – to get home to her baby. Here she was, stuck in the past, trapped in her own mind with a man someone else had made up and regaled her with tales of on tape that formed a part of his therapy… a therapy that – considering his ending – had never even worked.

She roughly wiped her eyes and tried to regain her composure. Molly was the most important thing to Alex and getting home to her was clearly her primary objective, but right then she had to focus. Focus on finding out everything she could about her alleged 'life' in 1995.

She discovered so many things. There were many she really could have done without discovering, such as Gene Hunt's 'Latte passport' from Latte Land with all his points from the many drinks he had consumed over the last year, and a terrifyingly large number of condom packets.

"At least I'm being safe," she sighed, throwing yet another packet into a pile and gagging at the sight of the words _'bubblegum flavour'_ festooned across the box.

She found a box under the bed and pulled it into daylight. As she opened the tight, purple lid her heart began to sink. Lying on the top was a photograph; a picture of someone who was very clearly herself, surrounded by people she didn't know. Whoever she was right there and then, she clearly had 'a life'. What did that mean about her 'fantasy'? Had an Alex been living in 1995 before her mind joined her?

There she was, in some kind of bar… there were the screens in the background with lyrics plastered across them so by the power of deduction Alex assumed correctly it had to be a karaoke bar. There was a man in a rather tasteless purple suit and large glasses on the stage, microphone in hand, while a long-haired brunette seemed to be cheering him on. Somewhere around them, a young woman with short blonde hair looked distastefully at the music selection book, while in the foreground her own beaming face stared back at her with one arm around the man who professed to be her fiancé.

They seemed so happy. That made Alex feel saddest of all. Some part of her, maybe a part that was tucked away in the recesses of her mind, was very happy here with her friends, partner, job and home.

"And wardrobe," she noted sadly, staring at the clothes her 2D counterpart was wearing.

Laying the photograph on the floor, she carried on rummaging through the box to find something _– anything_ – that would help her find her way out of this place. There were receipts, an instruction manual for the television, a couple of press cuttings for cases her 90s version had been involved in and a number of novelty condoms that went straight into the junk pile with all the others, but at the bottom she found a piece of paperwork that seemed important. She carefully unfolded it and scanned it with her eyes. One piece of information on the sheet stood out to her. It was the omission of something; something that could make all the difference to her happiness in this place. A smile crept over her face as she realised what this meant for her.

Now suddenly she couldn't wait for Gene to return home that night. She was going to enjoy this.

~xXx~

Gene had not had the greatest of all possible days.

Between trying to ignore Simon's constant attempts to smooth things over, avoiding Kim's requests for a CID field trip to the tattoo parlour and Terry and Bammo creating a new song in his honour, inspired by his mood, _entitled 'Someone didn't get any last night'_ he was baying for blood. Plus, he'd been distracted by graffiti in toilets claiming _'Jim Keats Does It Standing Up'_ and managed to get something rather delicate caught in his zip.

By the time he arrived back at the flat he was in the darkest of all possible moods and knew that things could only worsen as he spent the night alone on the sofa while Alex cozied up to her notebook. However, he was wrong. Things were even _worse _than he could have imagined.

"What in the name of all that stinks of seven shades of shit is this?"

Alex stood, arms folded, in the doorway of her bedroom.

"Your suitcases," she said.

Gene looked at the two pink and lilac cases sat on the floor before him.

"That's not my colour," he said bluntly.

Alex knew that wasn't the point.

"I found the lease," she said, pulling a sheet of paper from her pocket and unfolding it, "your name isn't on here."

Gene stared at her in silent disbelief. It was true enough – his name _wasn't_ on the lease. The flat belonged to Alex but he'd spent almost every night there since she moved in. He knew he'd had a problem with commitment in the past, and then later he had been scared of losing Alex if she woke up in her own time, but he'd learned that lesson. He proposed, things were progressing. But he'd never had time to address that lease because the very next day a bullet bore into her head.

"Me toothbrush is in the bathroom," he said.

"It won't be for long," said Alex, "I'll be glad for you to go and collect it so I know which one is mine and can clean my teeth at last."

Gene swallowed as he stared at her. He felt anger bubbling in his chest but tried to keep it at bay.

"So I don't pay the _rent," _he began, "I bring you 'ome wine and food every night. I rub yer shoulders when you've 'ad a bad day. I take yer to bars and restaurants and make you smile. I take you to bed and give you a good hard –"

"Yes," Alex flinched and held up her hand, not wanting to hear the end of that sentence, "_thank you! _I found enough of your condoms to illustrate that point. They're all packed in the case."

Gene shook his head slowly.

"You're not kicking me out of my home, Bolly."

"_My _home," Alex held the lease up again, "or had you forgotten?"

"I won't let you do this," Gene said firmly, taking a step forward but she held her hand out again.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," she said crossly, "I'll call the police the second you take another step in this direction. I don't think a domestic will look very good on your record, will it? How will that affect your standing in CID?"

"This is my home."

"The lease shows otherwise."

He looked at her seriously.

"With _you,"_ he said, "my home – is with you."

Alex stared at the stranger before her. For a moment she felt just the tiniest hint of guilt. Whoever this was, he seemed to genuinely have feelings for her counterpart in '95 she had taken the place of. But the guilt was invalid. She didn't know him, not at all. He was a creation of Sam Tyler's subconscious and the version her mind had created seemed a world apart from the person Sam had spoken of. Whoever Gene Hunt was he had no place being on her coma – or in her flat.

"Take care, Gene," she said quietly, "I'm sorry."

She turned and closed the bedroom door behind her and pulled a chair towards her, jamming it under the handle to block him from making any attempt at following her through.

Gene stared after her, the closing door illustrating to him every last reason why he'd hidden from commitment all his life. He took a deep breath and tried to fight back the anger that continued to grow. The last thing he wanted to do was to let it out. The Gene of old would have been banging on that door and screaming demands that would seal his fate, both with Alex and his job. He knew inside that there was something deeply wrong, that there were other forces than pure amnesia at work and that no amount of talking _or_ violence were going to help him right then.

He needed to get away. He needed to think about things clearly and calmly. He needed to keep a level head, with perhaps only three or four glasses of scotch to help him. More than that, he needed a friend. He sighed in frustration as he took hold of the two shockingly pink, girly cases and hauled them out of the flat, slamming the door as hard as he could behind them. There was only one possible destination for him to head now.

~xXx~

"Nope, nope, nope…" Kim complained as she went through the channels, "_nope._ Crap." She switched the TV off and threw the remote control to the floor. "_Crap._ Why don't you get cable?"

Simon ignored her question and indicated a shelf full of videos.

"Red Dwarf. Series two. Brand new and unwatched. Just saying."

Kim glanced at him incredulously.

"Say it again and you'll be eating it," she told him.

It was weird, she thought, to see Simon sprawled across the couch and looking so damn casual. She had only known him for a couple of weeks but had yet to see him out of his shirt and suit. That night he'd come home looking despondent after yet another row with Gene and looked as though he'd just given up hope somehow. He threw his smart clothes onto his bed, pulled on a jumper and jeans and took up residence on the couch; end to end, his feet perched on one arm and head on the other. Kim had watched him curiously as he worked his way through a large bag of crisps, foregoing any kind of proper meal and drank three cans of coke in a row.

There was a sudden knock at the door, interrupting her train of thought and Simon's first swig from his forth can of Coke. They looked at each other with a frown.

"Bit early for carollers," Simon commented. He groaned and got to his feet, sending a flurry of crumbs across the floor as he did so.

"Ask for a round of _O Holy Night_ or they're getting nothing," Kim told him as Simon slouched to the door and opened it cautiously.

To both of their surprise, outside the door stood two pink, girly suitcases with a dejected Gene behind them. Simon's mouth fell open in surprise. He felt embarrassed by his casual appearance and the state of his lounge suddenly and wished he'd concentrated on hovering instead of causing the European crisp mountain.

"Gene," he said in surprise.

Gene shuffled awkwardly and glanced at Simon for a moment, then lowered his eyes.

"Alex," he began, "she's, uh, thrown me out of the flat."

His admission brought Kim scrambling to the door beside Simon.

"She's done what, Guv?" she cried.

Gene cleared his throat.

"Seems she has a touch of amnesia," he said gruffly, "keeps waggling her fingers at me. Forgotten who I am." He looked at Simon properly this time. It wasn't an easy thing for him to do. "I, uh… I thought Metal Mickey might need rescuing from yer video collection. From what I hear it's scarier than the one Keats keeps in his basement." He hesitated, hoping Simon would say something so he wouldn't have to but the shock had stolen Simon's ability to speak. "I've got nowhere else to go," he explained a little more directly.

Simon shook himself a little to try to bring back his ability to talk. He stepped back a little so Gene could pass and said,

"Of course, come in."

He and Kim exchanged a glance and Simon gave a little shrug. They watched as Gene sank onto the couch, not bothering about the crumbs, and gave a sigh.

"Can I… get you a drink?" Simon asked, "Coffee, tea…?"

In reply, Gene opened a suitcase and pulled out a full bottle of scotch.

"Brought me own refreshments," he said.

Simon hesitated. He could see Gene shivering a little.

"Even so, I'll make you a coffee to go with that," he said, "you look cold."

"Bloody winter," Gene muttered in response.

As Simon walked to the kitchen, Kim began to follow him.

"I'll help," she said, mouthing to Simon; _"Awkward much?"_ as she caught up to his side.

"Metal Mickey, sit down," Gene demanded, noticing a slightly confused and anxious expression as she looked back at him. "I need someone who I can 'ave a discussion about the perils of bloody women with. Shoebury's not going to be of much use to me there."

Simon frowned.

"Glad to see I'm such a valued member of society," he said.

"When I've finished ranting and I'm onto the part where I need the girly relationship advice I'll get round to you, OK?" Gene told him.

Simon sighed and marched onward to the kitchen.

"Same old Gene," he muttered, and set off to get some drinks. He had no idea what was going on but he'd never seen Gene's eyes so dark and downbeat. Something serious was going on. He supposed he would just have to wait until Gene had finished ranting and reached the next stage of discussion before he found out exactly what that was. At the very least it meant Gene was talking to him again. However, the truth that would come out through the rest of the evening was something he would not have wished upon Gene for anything, not even for the return of their friendship.

_**~xXx~**_

_**Thank you so much to everyone who has reviewed this fic or added it to alerts and favourites – I really appreciate it and I'm glad you are enjoying it! This story will be getting darker soon and the rating will probably change – I hope you will stick with it and please bear in mind my motto with writing is that it's alright to put everyone through the ringer as long as it gets sorted out eventually! Thank you for reading! x**_


	18. Chapter 9, 2011: Incalzando

**Chapter Nine: 2011**

Alex awoke in the dark room, feeling confused and disorientated. Her body could have been made of lead; it was so very heavy and unresponsive. Her head felt like it was full of cotton, so fuzzy and soft. It took her a good few moments to recall tracking down Robin and arriving on his doorstep. She remembered falling through the open doorway and almost crushing him with her dramatic arrival.

"Oh goodness, how embarrassing," she groaned, putting one hand to her head.

There were crockery noises and rather inviting smells coming from somewhere outside so she slowly climbed to her feet and tiptoed into the hallway, shielding her eyes a little from the harsh artificial light. She saw Robin buttering some toast and gave him a sheepish smile.

"Hi," she said quietly.

"Hey," Robin's friendly response put her at ease, "you had me really worried. How are you feeling now?"

"_Better,"_ Alex said pointedly.

Robin pulled out a chair at the table and she slowly sank down into it.

"I made you some toast and a coffee," he said, "I thought you might be hungry."

"You were right," Alex managed to forget some of her anxiety for a moment at the sight of the steaming mug and hot, buttery plate of toast looming in her direction. The weedy, watery cabbage soup had hardly satisfied her and she hadn't exactly had a lot for breakfast since Molly had burnt her cornflakes. Exactly how she managed to do that, Alex wasn't sure but the evidence was right there in her bowl. Burnt cornflakes. "I'm starving," she told Robin, already aiming a slice towards her mouth and taking a big bite. The hospital might have advised small portions but her stomach did not agree.

Robin sat opposite her, a warm mug between his hands.

"I've never had women falling at my feet before," he commented, causing Alex to almost choke on her toast as she laughed. She took a sip of her coffee and tried to regain her composure.

"I'm so sorry about that," she said, a pink glow spreading across her cheeks. She gave Robin a smile, "if it's any consolation, Simon once fainted at mine."

Robin felt a mix of emotions overtake him all at once; the sadness of his loss and the fondness for every memory of the man he couldn't forget.

"Simon," he repeated quietly.

Alex bit her lip.

"Is it true?" she whispered, "about Simon?"

Robin's expression told her everything she needed to know.

"I still feel like he's going to come walking through that door," he whispered.

Until that moment Alex had been holding out some small hope that there had been a mistake. She put her head in her hands and exhaled loudly.

"Oh _shit,"_ she whispered, "Robin, I'm so sorry," she looked at him and noted tears in his eyes while fighting some of her own. She hesitated. "And… Gene?" she asked.

Robin looked at her blankly.

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"Is he dead?" Alex whispered.

Robin stared at her. He wasn't sure how to answer that. He recalled their last conversation in hospital and those fears came back to him. He looked at her seriously, his lip trembling just a little.

"Alex," he whispered, "how… how much do you remember? How much to you know?"

Alex stared at Robin with a lump of fear forming in her throat. This was the part she had been dreading.

"I know I don't belong here," she whispered, "I know that I got shot in nineteen ninety five and woke up sixteen years in the future. I know that no one will tell me where Gene is, or what's going on."

Robin swallowed as he stared at her. _Oh god, how am I supposed to do this?_

He didn't know if he could. This was the hardest thing to try to explain. He wasn't even sure he had enough of a grip on the subject himself. He looked at her sadly.

"Alex," he whispered, "Gene's world… it's not the real world. This is the real world, and the other place… it's a place where we go, when we're dead, or halfway there. You were there because you… your body… was in a coma in two thousand and ten."

Alex slowly shook her head. It didn't make any sense.

"But I don't belong here," she whispered, "they say things about me. Things that don't make sense. They say I have a daughter –"

"Molly," Robin nodded.

Alex looked at him, half shocked.

"You think I have a daughter too?" she whispered.

"Alex, you _do_ have a daughter," he told her, "she's fourteen years old. "

"But I don't know anything about her," Alex whispered, shaking her head, "and I don't understand why Evan is looking after me…"

"Yes, well, Evan and I aren't exactly on speaking terms."

"..or having me sectioned."

Robin choked and spluttered on his coffee.

"_What?"_

"That's why I had to run," Alex told him, her eyes wide and scared, "he thinks I've gone crazy, Robin. He doesn't understand. I heard him on the phone."

Robin leaned forward a little, his concern for her growing.

"How did you even _find_ me?" he asked.

"I'm not even sure myself," Alex have a tiny smile and a sigh, "all I could remember was your first name, but I found out on Evan's folding computer about your accident. I saw your surname – Thomas."

"It's Shoebury-Thomas now," Robin said, a little shyly. He gave a distant smile, thinking about the deed poll papers he'd signed just the day before.

Well, anyway, I found the library," she continued, "they had phone books in there. There were only two R. Thomases in the local area. I just hoped one of them was you."

Robin gave Alex a smile but it was tinged with sadness.

"I'm so sorry," he said quietly.

"For what?"

"I knew you were in some kind of trouble," Robin said quietly, "I should have pushed the point and found a way to see you but Evan banned me and told the doctors that they weren't allowed to let me through."

"Why on earth…?" Alex trailed off.

"You had that seizure," Robin explained, "he blamed me."

"That's nonsense, Robin, it was nothing to do with you," Alex assured him, "it was the bloody situation. Which… which I still don't understand." She paused and looked down. Something was heavily weighing her down. "It's not real, is it?" she whispered, "my life… nothing I thought I knew is real."

Robin chewed on his lip and wished that there was an easier way to explain this. It was so very hard to express.

"Don't say that," he whispered, his heart beginning to quicken in pace, "it _is_ real. It might not be the…. 'real world'," he hated to use air quotes but they seemed necessary, "But your life was as real as anything, Alex, you know it was real, just… just not on the same plain as this life." He reached across the table and laid a hand on her arm. "You were shot in_ this_ world and you went to Gene's world while your body recovered. You lived there, you did your job, you fell in love, you got a promotion, you got engaged, you helped people – you helped _me." _He paused, "and Simon. You truly saved him, the first time around."

Alex looked down. She didn't even know what he meant.

"There are… _gaps,"_ she whispered, "there's so much that's missing. I remember arriving at Fenchurch East but I don't remember any of my life before that. I remember joining CID, working with Gene… there were others. Different people. A team." She lifted her mug and stared into the coffee. Reflections of the spotlights on the ceiling danced in the rich, brown liquid. "I remember saying goodbye to them. And I have a weird memory of…" she hesitated. It sounded ridiculous, "of jumping out of the toilet window in a pub."

Robin frowned. This must have been some drunken CID night out, he guessed.

"I hope you didn't hurt yourself," he said cautiously.

Alex sighed and continued slowly.

"I do remember Simon," she said, "there were… three… four of them, all joined at the same time. Simon was one of them, but he didn't stay long." She paused. "He was shot… he went undercover."

Robin shook his head slowly.

"He didn't," he said, "you sent him home."

"I don't understand."

"His soul," Robin's voice broke up as he remembered the man he missed so much, "that was your job, Alex. To help them. To help _us_. To pass on, or go home."

Alex didn't understand what Robin meant, but she had a feeling she wasn't ready to hear any more.

"People have come and gone," she whispered, "a lot of people. They… they used to disappear sometimes." She put her hand to her head as a crushing pain started to swell inside her mind.

"Hey," Robin said quickly. He could see that the strain of the conversation was growing on her and the last thing he wanted was for her to have another seizure, "let's stop talking about this right now. Wait until you're ready."

"But I want to know," said Alex, "I _need…_" She could feel the pain building up again and knew Robin was right. She paused and took a deep breath then looked Robin right in the eye. "I need to know one thing," she whispered, "just one thing for sure." She paused as Robin watched expectantly. "Gene," she whispered, "is he dead?"

Robin hesitated. He actually didn't know. His time in Gene's world had been truncated compared to most and he hadn't had the same contact with Gene and the others that Simon had. Eventually he looked at her seriously and said,

"If he is, Alex, then he must have died a long time ago. I don't think he is a part of this world. But maybe he never really was. That world – _his_ world – that's where he belongs."

"I belong there too," whispered Alex.

"You… you belong _here,_" Robin tried to remind her, "with your daughter. With your job and your friends."

Alex shook her head.

"Maybe I used to," she whispered, "whoever I used to be. Whoever lived in this body." She stared at her hands, turning them over on the table as though hardly believing they were real, "but whoever _she_ was… she's not _me."_

Robin stared at her sadly. He didn't know what to say. He couldn't imagine what Alex as going through. Well perhaps he could – to a point. He knew the feeling of waking up, not knowing who you were supposed to be in a world that had created a new identity for you. But at least when he woke in Gene's world he had Simon by his side.

"Jesus, Alex," he breathed, rubbing his head, "You must have been through hell."

"I just focused on getting out of hospital," Alex said quietly, exhaustion beginning to set in again, "I knew if I could just get home then I could start to piece things together. But _'home'_… I was staying with Evan. Oh, Robin, It was just unbearable."

Robin bristled a little.

"I knew something was going on with that man," he said, angry with himself for not investigating sooner.

"He found me reading stories on his computer," Alex said quietly.

Robin gave a little gasp.

"_Porno ones?"_

"_Ew! No!"_ Alex cried, "no!" she shuddered at the thought of any beard porn Evan might have secreted about his floppies. "No, _news _stories. About Simon. And you." She hung her head. "And me." The memory began to overwhelm her and her eyes glistened with tears. "I couldn't take it. I stood up, I wanted to run but Evan came home. Robin, he thinks I'm crazy. I think I passed out for a while and when I came too he was asking someone on the phone about the medical care that would be involved in my 'sectioning'."

Robin's blood began to boil. He couldn't believe it.

"Why would he go to such extreme lengths to keep everyone away from you and then have you sectioned?" he cried.

"I _was_ very confused," Alex said quietly.

Robin chewed ferociously on his lip and looked at the clock.

"What time was this?"

Alex tried to remember. "I'm not sure," she began, "about four? No, four-thirty."

Robin looked at the clock. It was nearing seven.

"Shit… you can't stay here, Alex," he said quickly, "Evan will be looking for you by now. He's bound to check here."

"But I've got nowhere else to go," Alex's eyes pleaded with him.

Robin knew his flat wasn't safe. He was certain of they stayed there then within the hour a beard would show up looking for her, with Evan attached to it. He took a deep breath and pulled his face into a determined expression.

"Yes you have," he said quickly.

"What?"

"I know a place. Somewhere safe. Somewhere Evan won't find you."

Alex frowned.

"Where?"

Robin jumped to his feet and scrambled around in a kitchen drawer for a set of keys. A small model of Starbug and a metal tag bearing a name that Alex couldn't make out were attached to them. He grabbed a second set of keys from the kitchen table and slipped on his shoes.

"I'll explain when we get there," he said, "Come on."

"My _coffee,"_ Alex looked longingly at the cup as Robin pulled her gently to her feet.

"I'll get you one on the way," Robin said urgently, "come on."

As he pulled her towards the front door Alex felt a sense of anticipation. She had no idea where Robin was leading her but the further the trail led away from Evan, the safer she felt. Although she'd only known Robin for three days in 1995 she knew she was with the one person who just might be able to help her find a way out of the mess she'd found herself in. Just as long as they could stay a step ahead of Evan then things were going in the right direction. Somehow she would find her way home to Gene and her life in 1995, the life that she knew. It didn't matter how real or unreal that life was. In her heart and in her mind there was no alternative. She had to get home, and she knew – somehow – that she would make it.

Her happiness depended on it.


	19. Chapter 9, 1995: Leggiero

**Chapter Nine: 1995**

Simon slammed the tray of coffees on the table a little harder than was absolutely necessary to get Kim to remove her feet from the surface.

"Coffees," he said, a little unnecessarily.

He had taken longer than usual to make the coffees, a little wary of being in the same room as Gene. After the state of their friendship the last few days he wasn't sure he was ready to sweep Gene's behaviour under the carpet. He knew he had failed to bring Gene the man responsible for Alex's shooting but that was as far as his culpability went in all but Gene's eyes. He'd been through the ringer with his guilt over that already. If the only reason Gene was there, sitting in his lounge, eating the remains of his crisps was because he had nowhere else to go then Simon wasn't sure he wanted him there. If, however, he genuinely wanted to make amends then that would be a different story.

He sat down in an arm chair, slightly annoyed that his comfortable position of being draped across the couch had been taken from him and watched Gene pouring a large measure of scotch into his coffee.

"Metal Mickey's been doing a fine job with part one of me evening plans," Gene told him, "I need to employ a few more members of the dungaree brigade in CID."

Simon glanced at Kim.

"How many derogatory terms has he used while I've been out the room?" he asked.

"Believe it or not that was the first one," Kim said in surprise. She gave a little shrug of confusion and Simon raised an eyebrow in return.

Gene took a large gulp of his coffee, not even caring that it burned the back of his throat. He sat the mug down and stared at the table for a while until Simon began,

"Come on, Gene. Are you going to tell us what's going on?" He saw Gene hesitating. "Or do I get out my video collection?"

Gene sighed with the weight of the world on his shoulders.

"Looks like that bullet took a bit more of Alex from me than I thought," he said gruffly, "She was acting a bit… weird when she first woke up. Weirder than usual, I mean. Forgot who I was. Forgot her own bloody nicknames. Thought I was talking about crockery." He finally glanced up and for the first time noticed Simon's attire. _"Bloody hell."_

Simon frowned.

"What?"

Gene raised an eyebrow.

"Interesting jumper, Shoebury."

Simon frowned a little and tried to cover it up.

"So it was cold and I put on a jumper," he said, "that's not a crime is it?"

"Usually not, no," said Gene, "but most people wouldn't be wearing _that _jumper."

Simon felt a blush starting to glow in his cheeks. He tried to change the subject.

"So, Alex, amnesia, crockery…" he prompted.

Gene sighed as his mind returned to Alex. It wasn't a happy area to dwell on.

"I thought she was getting there, bits of 'er mind were coming back," he continued eventually, "I knew something still wasn't right but I talked meself out of believing it." He frowned. "Really, Shoebury, I never noticed how broad yer shoulders were until I saw you in that jumper. Or is it just chunky knit?"

Simon's blush grew darker and spread across his cheeks as he tried to pull his arms in together and leaned forward a little in an attempt to cover up as much of the jumper as he could.

"_So,"_ he said loudly, "what happened after Alex came home?"

Gene took a swig straight for the bottle.

"Took a trip back in time," he said, "nineteen eighty one." He sighed as he saw two confused faces staring back at hm. "Look, you both know the way things are. Me days of being on me own are over. Alex came here fresh from a bullet in the head. I didn't _know_ back then. I didn't remember. She knew she wasn't meant to be here. Knew something was wrong. Very strange she was. Always waggling her fingers and calling us constructions or something. Thought we were all in her head. But," He sighed again, "time went on. We got closer. Fifteen years have passed, more or less. Fifteen years and now she's back to where we started." He listed the bottle "square one."

"She thinks she's… just arrived?" asked Simon.

"Thinks we're all in her head," Gene nodded slowly.

"Shit," Simon exhaled.

Gene scratched his head.

"Bullet's wiped out everything, Simon. Fifteen years of it. Now she's back to talking in riddles and trying to get back 'ome." He looked at Simon again. "I know where I've seen that jumper!" he clicked his fingers, "_Noel's House Party,_ Saturday evening, BBC one!"

"_Right, _that's it!" cried Simon as he pulled off the jumper and threw it to the floor. Somehow he'd forgotten that he had no shirt on underneath and found himself displaying his bare chest, still full of scars and cuts from his tussle on the roof. _"Shit,"_ he cursed and pulled the jumper back on.

Gene turned away and covered his eyes.

"Shoebury, it's not even past the nine o' clock watershed yet!" he cried.

Simon scowled and got to his feet, his face hot and red with embarrassment.

"Biscuits," he said quickly, "what we need now are biscuits. I'm going to get some."

Kim watched him as he marched out of the room. He seemed to be overreacting a little tonight. His behaviour seemed so curious that she had to follow him and find out what was going on.

"I'd better see if he needs any help," she said, "those hobnobs can prove tricky to capture sometimes."

She stood up and ran after him, leaving a slightly confused Gene to alternate between drinking scotch and coffee while eyeing Simon's video collection with fear.

~x~

"_Shit,"_ Simon stood at the kitchen counter, sighing and gently head-butting a cupboard. He hadn't been expecting the footsteps behind him of Kim's hurried arrival and despite pretending that he was only examining the cupboard door for dust he knew he'd been sprung.

"What's up with you, Noel Edmonds?" she cried, "I've never seen you like that!"

"I don't need to be picked on over my choice in knitwear, that's all," Simon said crossly.

"Hey, calm down!" Kim was almost amused by his reaction, "he winds you up all the time about your name and your utter geekdom. Why have his jumper insults gotten under your skin?" She saw Simon flinch and scowl as she remembered his unintentional bearing of the chest. "Oops, sorry."

Simon sighed and opened the cupboard door to fish out a packet of biscuits.

"It doesn't matter anyway," he said.

"Come on, you can tell me," said Kim, "…did you have an unwise teenage crush on Noel Edmonds? Is that it?"

"_Ew!_ No! "Simon cried in horror.

"Mister Blobby then?"

"Get back in that lounge or I'll start throwing cutlery," Simon warned.

Kim hesitated.

"Have you got a crush on the Guv?" she asked.

"Don't be stupid," Simon sighed as he closed the cupboard.

Kim frowned for a moment. She's meant it as a half joke but something in Simon's reaction made her think again.

"You have, haven't you?" she asked again.

"_Shhhh! No I haven't!"_ Simon hissed, "god's sake, Kim, what do you think I am? Some kind of spotty adolescent with hormones oozing out my ears?"

"Alright," Kim held up her hands, "what is it then?"

Simon sat a packet of biscuits on a plate and lifted them up, staring at the plate rather than at Kim.

"I don't like my scars, OK?" he said quietly.

"What?"

"My scars," Simon whispered, "I'm covered in them. Cuts and scratches from Keats pulling me back on the roof. Some of them were really deep. They're never going to heal right away. And the scar from where Keats shot me, back in my own time. That came here with me."

Kim's eyes turned downward. She felt a little guilty for winding him up and pressing the matter now.

"Sorry, Simon," she said quietly.

"It doesn't matter," said Simon. He held the biscuits and plate out in the direction of the doorway and motioned for her to go back through into the lounge, then followed her. They found Gene looking downcast and flicking Simon's crisp crumbs into his coffee.

"Thought you'd gone to the North Pole to get those bloody biscuits then," he said.

Simon set the plate down on the table and began to open the packet.

"Gene," he began, "about tonight. I'm happy for you to stay, but I've only got as bed and a sofa, and they're both fully booked."

"A blanket on the floor's better than me back seat in this weather," he said.

Simon nodded.

"Fine," he said, "I'll get some blankets and you can sleep in here."

Kim looked at Simon aghast.

"I don't want him sleeping in here, staring at my private piercings when I get in bed!" she cried.

"_Fine,"_ Simon started to regret offering Gene a place for the night, "Gene, you can bunk down on the floor in with me."

"_I_ don't want _you_ looking at me unmentionables," Gene frowned.

"Oh for pity's sake!" Simon cried, throwing his hands in the air, "Fine – Kim, you're in with me – you can have the bed, I'll have the floor and Gene's out here on the couch. That way no one will be looking at anyone else's unmentionables. Is that alright with everyone? Any more complaints? Anything that's not to your liking?" he stared at Kim and Gene, just daring anyone to make one more comment about the sleeping arrangements. When nobody did he exhaled and gave a firm nod. "_Good."_

Gene dived on the biscuits and took a handful. He hadn't eaten since lunchtime and the scotch needed mopping up. He practically inhaled the first one, brushed the crumbs from his leg, burped and glanced at Simon.

"Shoebury?"

Simon glanced back at him.

"What?" he asked, expecting another jumper jibe.

Gene hesitated.

"Appreciate the hospitality."

Simon looked at him for a moment. He thought there had to be some sarcasm behind that comment for a moment but Gene's sentiments seemed genuine. Eventually he nodded.

"No problem," he said quietly. He looked down for a while. He was glad that they were back on speaking terms but he deeply wished it had been under happier circumstances. Gene wasn't himself. Without Alex he seemed adrift. He looked around the room as a slightly uncomfortable silence descended and he and Kim became very much aware that they were stuck with their boss for the night. There had to be some kind of distraction he could find, something to fill the silence. Something to take their minds off the situation.

With one glance at the video shelf, he had it.

"I know what will cheer you up, Gene," he said.

To Gene's abject horror he watched Simon climb to his feet and go for the Red Dwarf videos. He sensed a sci-fi marathon coming on. This was not good for his cred. This was almost not good for his sanity. He turned helplessly to Kim and mouthed;

"_Help me and there's a pay rise in it for you!"_

Kim glanced at Simon who was busily selecting a tape. She leaned conspiratorially close to Gene and hissed,

"Not a problem. I'll teach you my technique."

Simon thought he heard someone say something and glanced around distractedly.

"Hmm, what?"

Kim cleared her throat.

"So, Simon," she began, "tell us about Keats's flat in two thousand and ten again.

Simon froze.

"What?"

"That Andrew Ridgeley autograph," Kim began, "describe it to us. Was it in full colour? Black and white? How big was it? What kind of haircut did he have in the picture?"

A rush of nausea washed up inside of Simon and he felt a burning sensation travelling through his bowels as they developed a sudden urge to empty themselves.

"Uh, 'scuse me a minute," he gasped, "must have had a dodgy bag of crisps…"

As he raced for the bathroom a triumphant Kim crossed the room and emptied the shelf of videos, hid them behind the couch and folded her arms.

"And that," she told Gene, "is how you survive in Simon's House of Geek."

Gene raised his eyebrow. He liked her style.

"I'm seeing promotion in yer near future," he told her, "how d'you fancy heading up a new anti-nerd division of CID?

Kim laughed.

"Sounds perfect," she declared.

**~xXx~**

**A/N: Don't think I have gone crazy in the next 2 days; tomorrow (Sunday) and Monday I am uploading 2 chapters each day to demonstrating how the parallels in the timelines are growing closer! So if you get two alerts, don't think I've gone mad!**


	20. Chapter 10, 2011: Lacrimoso

_**A/N: No, you're not going crazy, I'm uploading two chapters today, and tomorrow! Next chapter coming online in a few minutes…**_

**Chapter Ten: 2011**

Alex opened her eyes as she felt the car draw to a halt. She felt fuzzy in the head again. The motion of the car must have sent her back to sleep. A couple of half-remembered nightmares about Jim Keats knocked away at her brain but she tried to push them away.

"Where are we?" she asked quietly, trying to make out anything during the dense fog that had started to gather.

Robin opened the door and unfastened his seatbelt.

"I'll show you," he said quietly. Alex noticed his voice was tinged with sadness but wasn't sure why. She decided to follow and find out for herself.

~x~

The door to the flat swung open and Alex peered cautiously in.

"What is this place?" she asked.

"It's Simon's old flat," Robin said quietly, "we were trying to sell it. Well, we thought we _had_ sold it. The sale fell through while I was in a coma. He moved in with me after his accident and kind of… never went home." He sighed sadly. "We were looking for as bigger place."

Before Alex could reply, a figure jumped out of a doorway giving some kind of over-the-top battle-cry and launched into some faux _kung fu_ moves causing Robin to jump several inches off the ground and scream like a girl.

The fake kung fu expert froze and cried,

"Who the hell are you?"

"Who the hell are _you?"_ Robin countered.

"I asked you first!" the man cried.

"I'm the man who inherited this place in my boyfriend's will!" Robin cried, "what's your excuse?"

"I'm squatting," the man said casually.

"_Squatting?"_ Robin cried.

"Yeah."

"Well, not any more you're not," Robin narrowed his eyes and grabbed his arm, "out!"

"Hey, what about squatters rights?" the man protested.

"What about fist-in-the-teeth bereaved boyfriend's rights?" cried Robin, hustling him to the door.

"I'll call the police!" the squatter threatened.

"OK," Robin began sarcastically, "_ring-ring! Hello, police?" _He looked at the squatter, "well, what a surprise, I was already here. Now don't make me use my baton." He shoved the man out through the door and stamped his foot for good measure. "And stay out!"

Alex tried not to show how amused she was and stifled a giggle.

"You sound like you're putting a cat out for the night," she commented.

"The bloody cheek of him!" cried Robin, "did you see him? With the stupid karate?" He reached out and tried the light switch. A moment later the hallway lit up. "Electricity's still on," he said, "bloody squatter probably paid the bill!" he led Alex through to the lounge, "he's probably upgraded the Sky package too!" He paused and gave a distant smile. "We used to take turns hosting," he said quietly, "one night I'd come to his, the next he'd come to mine. I had the better TV package and he had the better DVD collection."

Alex tried to smile but it came out as an extremely sad one.

"You must miss him very much," she said quietly.

Robin's smile reflected her own. He knew that, in a way, she was going through the same thing. Her separation from Gene was killing her inside.

"I know this isn't ideal," he began, switching on a lamp and helping her to sit down, "but it will be safe, Evan won't find you here."

Alex looked at him with panicked eyes.

"You're not leaving me here on my own are you?"

"I can't stay with you right now," Robin said guiltily, "Evan's going to be looking for you and he'll be sniffing round my flat. If he finds I've gone too then he'll send out a search party after both of us. It will be easier for you to 'disappear' if he thinks I'm still around. I need to go home and throw him off the scent so that he looks for you in all the wrong places." He felt terrible inside as he saw the look of anxiety on her face. If there was any other way then he'd have done it. He knelt beside her and took her hands. She seemed so far removed from the bold, strong woman who'd helped him so much in 1995. Back then _he_ was the one in a mess. "Look," he said quietly, "I'm not leaving you forever. I need to make sure Evan's off your trail and pick up some things to get you organised. Look at you – you're still in your pyjamas!"

Alex felt her cheeks flush as embarrassment took them over. She'd been so wrapped up in finding Robin sand escaping Evan that she'd forgotten she was still in less than ideal attire.

"God, what a mess," she whispered.

Robin thought for a moment.

"I know it's not perfect but some of Simon's clothes are still in the bedroom. That's presuming our friendly squatter hasn't been playing DCI dress-up." He noted the tiniest flicker of a smile, "You can at least find something warmer. A shirt, jumper maybe."

Alex nodded slowly.

"Thank you," she whispered. She paused. "You still owe me a coffee!"

"Shit, I was going to get one on the way, wasn't I?" Robin cursed. He thought for a moment, then reached into his pocket and pulled out a twenty pound note. "Look, there's a convenience store just on the corner. It's literally a minute's walk to the door. I'll leave you the key." He placed the money and the door key on the table. "Get some coffee, some milk, and maybe some food. Anything else you might need. They've got all kinds of things."

"Is it safe to go out?" Alex asked, "I mean… won't I look a bit conspicuous?"

"No one knows you around here," Robin reminded her, "and it's called a convenience store for a reason. You won't be the first person to turn up in bed clothes. Simon went in his pyjamas once. When we had an… emergency."

Alex frowned.

"What kind of emergency?"

"Forgetting to buy blank DVDs to record the new Red Dwarf specials a couple of years ago," Robin blushed.

Alex couldn't help giving a little smile.

"I see," she laughed gently, "A geek emergency."

"Shit, you sound like Gene," Robin told her.

"And you sound like Simon," she said quietly.

Silence descended over them both as they felt their thoughts running away with them. In a way they were as lost as one another and both separated from the one person they wanted to be with by a layer of reality. Both of them sighed, it was an almost simultaneous thing, but before either could speak there was a strange noise and Robin blushed, fishing his phone out of his pocket. Alex vaguely recognised the theme tune to The X Files and stared in shock at the strange, small contraption that played the tune.

"What is that thing?" she cried, a little alarmed.

"It's just my mobile," Said Robin.

"But it's small enough to mistake for a finger biscuit and dunk in your tea by accident!" Alex commented before she could stop herself. She watched as Robin's face darkened. "What is it?"

"That's Evan," he said quietly.

Alex felt her heart jolt a little in her chest. The anxiety was creeping back.

"What are you going to do?" she whispered.

Robin took a deep breath.

"Voicemail will get that," he said, "I'll drive home, call him back, pretend I was shopping and deny all knowledge of the existence of Alex Drake." He paused as he fished the car keys from his pocket. "I don't know when I'll be back, Alex," he warned, "I have to play it safe for your sake. But he won't find you here. You've got light and heat, you can get yourself something to eat and drink, and I'll be back when I can. It might not be until the morning, but don't give up hope on me. I won't let you down. Simon would have wanted me to do everything in my power to help you and that's what I'm going to do."

He began to move towards the door and looked back at Alex who seemed frail and frightened.

"Take care, Robin," she said quietly, "don't let Evan intimidate you."

Robin shook his head.

"He's done that once," he began, "I won't let him do it again."

As Alex watched him go she felt a little torn up inside. Left alone for her own safety, it was the first time she had really been able to think about her terrible situation. Now she had Robin on her side and she knew a little more about where she stood between the two worlds but the bigger question remained unanswered. If Gene was on the other side, then how would she ever get back to him?

There had to be a key, she was sure of it. A key to returning to the life she knew. But where that key was hidden, she couldn't begin to imagine.


	21. Chapter 10, 1995: Narrante

_**A/N: Uploaded a double dose this morning – if you've not read the 2011 chapter go back and read that first!**_

**Chapter Ten: 1995**

Simon was really starting to regret those three and a half cans of coke, plus coffees, as he got up for this third pee of the night. The tiptoed trips to the bathroom while attempting not to wake his houseguests were bad enough, but after the second trip he'd managed to get a line from _Tubthumping_ stuck in his head and it wouldn't go away.

"_Pissing the night away… pissing the night away…"_

While the line was true enough he could have done without it going round in his head non-stop.

"Stupid bladder," he mumbled as he left the bathroom yet again to head back to the bedroom while trying not to trip over Gene's suitcases on the way. He decided to grab a glass of water from the kitchen on his way, tiptoed into the room, switched on the light and jumped a mile in the air as he found Gene sitting at the table, large scotch in hand. He gave a loud shriek of surprise and clasped his hand over his chest, heart beating a hundred miles an hour.

"You're sounding a bit girly there, Shoebury," Gene commented, the scotch adding a slur to his speech.

"So would you if you found yourself at your kitchen table unexpectedly!" Simon cried, his voice still an octave higher than it should have been.

Gene couldn't wrap his head around that one.

"You gonna join me?" he asked.

"I was after some water, not something that's going to strip paint off my walls," Simon told him.

"That was supposed to be a polite way of saying '_sit down, Shoebury'_," Gene informed him.

Simon hesitated. The cold November night nipped around his torso and he'd already bared enough flesh accidentally for one day.

"I should get to bed," he said.

"_Sit down Shoebury_," Gene said more directly.

Simon took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He didn't feel he could refuse that tone. A little reluctantly, he pulled out a chair and sank slowly into it. He looked up expectantly, waiting for him to speak. He seemed extremely quiet for Gene Hunt.

"What did you want?" he asked quietly.

Gene took a large mouthful of scotch and stared at Simon.

"It's about you, on the roof," he began.

Simon bristled.

"Oh, not that again," he said crossly, but Gene held his hand up.

"I watched that tape over and over but always stopped it before he jumped," he explained, "I watched the full version for the first time today." He hesitated. "I still don't know why you thought you needed to have a staring contest with him, or let him molest yer pecs. But you couldn't have guessed what he was going to do." He lifted his glass again. "You were right. There should have been no exit from there. He would have been as good as nicked, didn't matter how long it took."

Simon stared at Gene and watched him fiddle with his glass uncomfortably. He knew that was as close to an apology as he was going to get that night. He nodded slowly.

"Thanks," he whispered.

Gene breathed in deeply.

"This Alex business," he began, "I didn't mean to butt into yer House O' Homos."

Simon knew he shouldn't find that funny but couldn't help laughing none the less. He realised Gene probably felt, right then, like he felt almost every day – the odd one out. The minority. He was the oppressed straight minority in that flat.

"Look," he began, "I know it's cramped, bUt you're welcome to stay a few more nights. Just until Alex finds the missing bits of her memory."

Gene sighed.

"_If_ she finds them," he corrected. The thought was so depressing that he reached out and grasped the bottle to top up his drink. It made Simon's heart sink to see it. He tried to put himself in Gene's place. How would he feel if Robin came back to Gene's world and didn't know who he was? What if he had a terrible trombone accident, fell head-first into an orchestra pit and died, then appeared in this world with no memory of who he used to be, just like all the other 'deadies'? How on earth would he cope with that?

"Gene," he began, "you've got to keep pushing her. Those memories are going to come back."

"If they're even there," Gene mumbled.

Simon hesitated. He bit his lip.

"Gene?" he began questioningly, "is there anything else you want to tell me? Anything you didn't want to say in front of Kim?"

Gene's line of sight rose and he looked at Simon grimly. There was something. Something he felt stupid even bringing up. It sounded ridiculous. He needed another gulp of scotch to give him the courage to address the subject.

"Two Bollys," he said quietly.

Simon frowned.

"What?"

"Two of them," Gene said, "One on the screen, the other in front of me. Both of them dying. Both their hearts stopped. Two sets of doctors, shocking her and pumping her chest and giving her the kiss o' life and all that other life-saving bollocks."

Simon almost pointed out that the life-saving 'bollocks' was the reason she was still alive but felt that was beside the point.

"Carry on," he said quietly.

"And first the one of the screen… and then the one 'ere…" Gene wasn't sure where he was going with this, "they were both alive. Seconds apart, their hearts were beating again."

Simon swallowed.

"I don't understand," he whispered.

Gene looked at him.

"It was the first time," he continued, "that I _really_ realised there were two of her," he said, "she had two bodies. One laying in that hospital bed, all still and comatose. The other one, alive and well and letting me do things to her with spreadable choc-"

"_Ew!"_ Simon threw his hands in the air, then clasped them over his ears, _"No,_ Gene, stop. Stop _right_ there. No, no, no, no, sensitive gay man in the room!"

Gene scowled. There was nothing wrong with setting the scene, he thought. But nevertheless, for once the sexual chocolaty antics were not important.

"She was every bit as real here as she was in your time, Simon," he continued. He took a deep breath. "What if there were two brains to match?"

"What do you mean?"

"Or two personalities? Two souls? What if she was _too_ real here? What if she became a person all by herself?"

Simon looked at him blankly.

"I don't think I understand," he said.

Gene shook his head.

"I'm not sure I do either," he said, "but Alex woke up as someone else. _The_ Alex I met the day she rolled up in a skirt as short as yer list of female conquests!"

Simon put his head in his hands and tried to wrap his mind around it.

"Are you saying the _wrong Alex_ woke up?" he asked, "like… the Alex from fifteen years away came back here _again_?"

Gene shook his head.

"I don't know," he reiterated, "I don't know _what_ I'm saying. I just know I saw that Alex from the future on the screen, dying again, and then _my_ Alex woke up like the last fifteen years never happened.

Simon closed his eyes.

"_Shit,"_ he breathed.

Gene finished his glass of scotch and poured some more.

"I don't know where my thoughts are going on this one, but I don't like it," he said. He lifted his glass again and then found his eyes drawn to Simon's chest. "Bloody hell, Shoebury, you've been topless more often than page three of The Sun today!"

"_Shit,"_ Simon cursed. He'd almost forgotten about that. He tried desperately to cover himself with his folded arms and got to his feet.

"Shoebury, where are you going?"

"To get some clothes!" cried Simon, "Is that OK with you?"

"Not if you get that Noel Edmonds jumper again," Gene warned. He noticed that Simon's cheeks had turned red again and his expression was awkward. He cleared his throat. "Alex has scars, you know."

Simon glanced back at him, a whisker away from leaving the room in search of something to cover up with. He frowned, a little confused.

"What?"

"Scars," Gene repeated, "war wounds. Taken a few bullets… couple of knives. Few battles clearing up the streets. Inevitable, really." He sipped his scotch. "Doesn't matter. Not really. Just shows you've lived. Shows you've been there. Fought."

Simon glanced down for a moment and gave a slow nod.

"Alex is lucky you don't notice them."

"I notice them," Gene corrected, "they make me proud of her. For everything she's done." He paused. "They tell the story of everything you've survived, Simon. Don't be ashamed of surviving."

Simon hesitated in the doorway, not quite sure what to say. He felt himself blushing in the dim light, not knowing how to take that. The attention made him uncomfortable, though he wasn't sure why. He shuffled a little awkwardly and held the doorframe, standing close enough to it to shield his chest from sight.

"I think I'd better get to bed," he said quietly, "you try to get at least some sleep too." He nodded at the bottle on the table. "And not too much more of that. OK?"

"Yes mother Shoebury," Gene said, filling his glass to the rim, taking a long gulp and giving a satisfying gasp. Simon rolled his eyes and left, the call of the lovely uncomfortable floor and blanket combination proving too hard to resist.

Gene watched him leave, then turned his attention back to the glass before him. His mind went over and over the situation with Alex. Was there any of his Alex left inside of her? He really wasn't sure. In fact, he wasn't even sure this was _his_ Alex at all. There had to be a way to find out, a way to know for certain. He would have to find it somehow, of that he was sure. Until then, he would have to look to his scotch for company and hope the patterns of light dancing in the glass would bring some clarity to his thoughts. He needed a plan and he needed it fast. He wasn't going to lose Bolly forever, of that he was determined, but the means to bring her back was out of his reach.

"What a bloody metaphysical mess," he sighed, then paused and head-butted the table. _"Now _I'm sounding like bloody _Shoebury!"_

He needed Alex back for more reasons than one. Any more nights spent in Shoebury's flat and he was going to become fluent in the language of geek.

_**~xXx~**_

_**Two more chapters tomorrow!**_


	22. Chapter 11, 2011: Lamentando

_**A/N: Uploading 2 more chapters today because, really, they should be read side by side – 1995 version up in a bit!**_

**Chapter Eleven: 2011**

Alex felt a little awkward as she tiptoed through the half-empty flat. She felt like she was intruding upon the life her friend used to lead. While most of Simon's things had been removed or packed away there were still remnants of his life there, like a sad relic from the past

She slowly made her way along the hall and peered through a doorway, looking for the bedroom. She found a bathroom instead and filed it away in her memory for future use. She felt a desperate urge to have a non-bed-bath coming on.

Finally she opened the door to a larger room and found a large bed indicating she had found the right place. The bedclothes were crumpled where the squatter had been making good use of the amenities, and in the corner of the room a small lamp stood proudly upright to cast a soft glow over the room. Alex switched it on hesitantly. Despite Robin's reassurances that she would be safe she thought it would be unwise to call any undue attention to her presence and tried to keep the lighting to a minimum.

She opened Simon's wardrobe and found a wall of man-clothes staring back at her. She gave a very deep sigh. It certainly wasn't ideal but beggars couldn't be choosers so it would have to do.

"Why do I feel so sure this isn't the first time I've been in this situation?" she grumbled, pulling out a light purple shirt and a pair of light-coloured trousers which she threw onto the bed. She realised, with some horror, she had no underwear. The thought of going _commando_ in Simon's trousers did not exactly fill her with joy but it was better than the idea of going commando in Evan's, she thought to herself.

She closed the wardrobe and found herself face to face with a full length mirror.

"Simon, I never had you down as a secret poser," she thought to herself with a little giggle, the mental image of Simon bothering to check himself out in the mirror bringing her more amusement than it really should have done. For the first time since she came out of her coma she found herself face to face with her reflection. It was strange, she thought, how until now she'd had no interest in confronting her appearance in a mirror. She was far too concerned about what was going on in her mind than looking at the vessel containing all her terrified thoughts. Now she couldn't run from it any longer. It was right there, staring her in the face.

There, on her forehead, was the scar; the mark that told the story of two and a half years of comatose condition. The bullet wound that led to her time in a world she would give anything to return to. She leaned a little closer to the mirror and brushed the sides of her hair away from the area. The sight of it made her shudder. She had no memory of the man who'd caused that wound. The bullet fired in her direction in 2008 held no place in her memory. The bullet she remembered was fired by another man, the most evil of all men, in a world she couldn't reach out and touch.

She swallowed as she stared at the mark. She didn't want to seem vain but the thought of a scar in plain sight - a scar leaving anyone who saw it of no doubt how she'd received it - that thought made her feel wretched inside. She touched it with her fingertip, the raised skin making her feel a little uncomfortable as she traced her finger around it. She didn't like this. Not at all.

"First point on the schedule – find a pair of scissors and adopt a fringe," she said meaningfully.

She stopped to stare at her haircut. Again, she'd not even thought about it. Inside her mind she still had the dark blonde highlights and floppy 'Rachel cut' that she'd had when she left 1995. The plain, sensible, straight brunette look came as a shock to her. She supposed that being in a coma was not exactly conducive to staying in touch with current hair fashions but the plain, straight, lank look did not become her. It made her eyes appear even more sad and sunken than they already did.

She looked at her face, the face of a younger woman. In 1995 she'd gained a few years. Her aging hadn't been at the same speed she would have experienced in the real world but that didn't stop her picking up a few wrinkles. Aside from the bullet wound her forehead was almost clear. Where a couple of lines had formed in 1995, there were now only shallow traces of them. The sides of her eyes were clear from crow's feet and her laughter lines were a thing of the past.

_But then,_ she thought, _it doesn't look like I had much to laugh about here in the first place._

She took a step back and stared at herself, from head to toe. Shedding the jacket she'd stolen from Evan she found a pyjamaed version of herself staring back. Those clothes seemed to hang far too loosely about her frail frame. Slowly she unfastened the buttons down the front of her pyjama top and let it drop to the floor. The sight of her body shocked her so deeply she had to draw in a deep breath to stop herself from crying out in surprise.

The first thing she noticed were her ribs. They were poking out, clearly visible through her skin. In her mind, she lived in a fairly average body, a few extra pounds here and there where she'd enjoyed her nights out with Gene and her friends a little too much, nightly bottles of wine and too many take-aways adding to her frame. She was a little self-conscious of that sometimes, but she knew Gene loved her as she was. In fact, he'd made the occasional comment about wishing for more to hold onto. That didn't stop her feeling as though she'd gained a little middle-aged spread sometimes though.

But in contrast to the body that stared back at her, the fuller figure was positively ravishing. She felt womanly and sensuous in her body back in 1995. The body that stared at her in the mirror showed every single day of that comatose condition.

Pale, boney, drawn. She knew that the combination of the coma, a lengthy and difficult recovery, and the horrible cabbage soup wouldn't exactly do much for her curves but she felt like a shadow of herself.

Her eyes travelled down her body and her hand moved in a smooth line across her flat stomach. No sign of a mark where Gene's bullet had struck her in the abdomen years ago. She was surprised to find her eyes filling with tears. She wished that she at least had that. The notion shocked her – she knew Gene hated seeing that scar, the reminder of his mistake that brought back all the guilt attached to it but at least that wound connected her with Gene forever. It was her equivalent of having a tattoo with _'I Love Gene' _emblazoned across her body.

She turned to look at her arms. Where scars had once stared back at her, only smooth skin could be seen. The stab wounds from a brush with a crackhead, the cuts where she'd tangled accidentally with some unexpected barbed wire while chasing a suspect, the cuts from the glass when a drunken prostitute introduced her to the shards of a bottle – all gone. She felt carefully around her right elbow and even the chip of bone was back where it should be. Every part of her, restored to its former glory.

Except for those wretched ribs staring back at her.

"Point number two on the schedule," she said quietly, "find the chocolate."

Taking a deep breath to prepare for the worst, she slipped her pyjama bottoms down over her bony hips and flinched at the sight that met her.

"_Eugh, overgrown much?"_ she said, "point number three, find a razor."

Her legs were every bit as bony as the rest of her. Her muscles had wasted away during her comatose years – no wonder she had so little strength. She couldn't imagine how long it would take her to recover.

She looked at herself from head to toe; the bullet wound to the head, the younger face, the hair she didn't recognise, the protruding ribs and skinny legs. And that was to say nothing over her overgrown _lady garden._

"_I don't know you,"_ she whispered to her reflection.

When she could stand to stare at the stranger on the outside no longer she began to dress, pulling Simon's shirt over her arms and quickly fastening it down the front. She folded the sleeves back a couple of times, then pulled on the trousers. Holding them up at the waist with one hand she rummaged again through the wardrobe until she found a belt, then did her best to convince the trousers to stay up. She rolled the bottoms up a little to stop them from dragging along the ground, then tiptoed through to the bathroom.

She switched on the light and began to rummage through the cabinet. Most of the contents had been emptied but she found a small pair of nail scissors hidden away behind a couple of items that were probably better left private between Simon and Robin. Quickly glossing over the other objects she took the scissors and faced her reflection one more time. This time she saw just a small portion of herself reflected on the little shaving mirror above the sink. _Good._ The more of that empty shell she blocked out, the better.

She pulled down some hair at the front of her scalp. She wished she had a brush or a comb nearby but for now her fingers would have to do. Running them through the hair, she pulled down as straight a line as possible and snipped roughly across it. She knew that the line could be better and she had certainly made the right career choice by going into the police force instead of choosing a hairdressing apprenticeship but with every snip she felt a little more relief, the wound on her head disappearing bit by bit behind a wall of hair.

Snip, snip, snip… the tiny scissors took an eternity to do the job, but finally she stood back a little and examined the result. It wasn't perfect, but the scar was hidden. That was enough for now.

She took a deep breath and gave a determined nod.

"Point one on the schedule complete," she whispered to herself, "time to get that chocolate."

Although the thought of venturing outside filled her with fear her growling stomach and craving for coffee overruled those worries. Taking her courage in both hands she collected the keys and money from the table and set off on an adventure to battle with 21st century shopping.

It was not an event she was going to forget in a hurry.


	23. Chapter 11, 1995: Mesto

_**A/N – Another double dose today – read the previous chapter first if you haven't already!**_

**Chapter Eleven: 1995**

Alex paced the floors of the empty flat. It had been several hours since she had thrown Gene out of the building. She'd spent that time torn between feeling relieved at getting the stranger out of the way and feeling a sense of guilt for doing so. But she really had no choice. She had to focus on finding her way home.

Time passed by and TV channels closed down one by one. Soon only ITV was broadcasting and since she didn't feel like watching _Whale On, Get Stuffed_ or _Cinema, Cinema, Cinema_ she switched it off and found herself with nothing except a bottle of wine that she'd found in the kitchen for company. She wasn't sure she should be drinking after sustaining a gunshot wound to the head, but it was preferable to falling asleep and suffering nightmares about Layton again.

She poured herself a glass of red, then walked slowly through to the bedroom where she looked at herself in the full length mirror. She had tried to gloss over the matter of addressing her reflection properly for some time but she couldn't put it off for much longer. She had to do it sooner or later.

She stared at the large dressing on her forehead. She was supposed to go and get the dressing changed and her wound checked the next day but that was an appointment she knew she wouldn't be keeping. Carefully she peeled the tape from around the dressing, her sensitive skin feeling every little tug as the sticky stuff gave up its hold on her and finally peeled away.

She gave a gasp as she caught sight of the wound. Somehow she just hadn't thought it would look so grotesque. She flinched in horror at the reflection staring back. She had to live with that _every day_ of her _life?_ The reminder of her ticket to the past?

Her dark blonde highlights became the new focus of her attention as she tried to pull a little of the hair over her wound. What on earth were _they_ for? She inspected them a little more closely. Her hair seemed dry, over processed, blow-dried to within an inch of its life.

"What _was_ she thinking?" she whispered, running a hand through her locks and mentally planning an appointment at the hairdresser's.

As she pushed back her hair she noticed the lines that had started to creep into her complexion. A few on her forehead, a couple around her mouth, a little group around her eyes. Her heart sank as she stared at the older woman in the mirror that she barely recognised. There might have only been a few years in it, but it felt like a world apart from the reflection she knew so well.

She pulled her top over her head and dropped it to the ground, then turned back to her reflection and the cleavage that was struggling to escape from the top of her bra. She didn't remember having quite such a healthy set up there before. But then, there was a little more all over than she was used to seeing.

Her eyes were drawn to her arms, the marks from knives, wire and glass that told the story of_ oh so many cases, _plain to see across her pale skin. Her fingers traced a line over the wounds she had never known before. It hurt her deeply to see what her body had been through, as deeply as every one of those cuts must have hurt the women whose body she had arrived in. For as much as she could see her 1995 counterpart had a life here, it seemed to be a pretty damn dangerous one.

Her eyes moved down her body to her stomach, where one mark stood out to her and brought her a shudder. Her fingers reached down and moved slowly around the bullet wound, flinching at the thought of a shot to the guts. How had her counterpart even _survived_ here? Was she indestructible or something?

As she touched the wound, an unfamiliar sensation greeted the nerve endings in her fingers. The body beneath them wasn't firm and toned, there was an extra layer of padding around it, most of which seemed to have settled around her abdomen. As she moved her fingers, she was horrified to find her stomach moved with them. She watched in dismay as the effects of all those nights at the karaoke bar knocking back empty calories in the alcohol and all the fast food thrown down her neck before heading out to the next case were reflected in the little layer around her waist.

She turned to one side and examined her reflection again. She sighed and frowned sadly at the sight of the smallest paunch that felt as big as the spare tyre she'd seen in Gene's precious Fiat to her. Back home she hadn't had much to look forward to in her life. She was a single mother with a pressured career and one of her few escapes was going to the gym. She supposed Alex Drake circa 1995 was too busy for that kind of thing.

"With the number of condoms I found I must have been having sex ten times a day," she said crossly, "how did I ever get time to develop a pot belly? I should be as thin as a rake!"

She closed her eyes for a moment, took a deep breath, unfastened her trousers and pushed them down along with her knickers. She could barely stand to look but eventually opened one eye and saw an overgrown _'landing strip'_ that was starting to look like part of a maze instead. She sighed as she kicked her trousers and underwear away. Maybe the maze would at least confuse Gene enough to send him away from the area. Maybe he'd get lost looking for it.

She turned to one side again and noticed her posterior had a little more wobble to it than it used to.

"This brings a whole new meaning to the phrase 'Does my bum look big in this?'," she sighed, "I don't think that sentence has ever been ended by the word _'decade'_ before but it seems appropriate here." She could almost hear that Hunt person making lewd remarks about needing something to hold onto. The thought of it made her blanch.

She couldn't get used to all this extra padding. It wasn't as though her counterpart had let herself _go _exactly, more that she was comfortable in her own skin. That was something Alex wished that she could ever experience. So used to her slim body, her flat stomach and her flawless skin back home, the new vessel she'd arrived in had shocked her several times over.

"_What the hell happened to you?"_ she whispered to her reflection.

Feeling disturbed and distressed by what she had seen she pulled out the robe she'd found earlier that day and threw it on, the silk running smoothly along her arms and draping itself around her body. It brought her comfort, warmth and even a little familiarity. She had a pair of pyjamas at home that felt just like this.

Feeling sad, lost and very much alone she slipped into bed and pulled the sheets around her shoulders. She closed her eyes and wished that she could sleep, but knew that sensation would be a long time away from her that night. Eventually she reached instead for the glass of wine still sitting beside her and downed it quickly. She knew alcohol was never the answer, but right then she wasn't even sure what the _question_ was, so what difference did it make?

"_Oh Molly,"_ she whispered, her mind returning to the one subject, the one person that she needed to focus on, "I'm trying so hard but I don't know where to start. The more I look, the less I find." She looked down at her stomach, "aside from around my middle."

She closed her eyes and leaned back against the pillows, desperately hoping that sleep would come and take her away for another night. As exhausted as her body was, her mind was overactive; thinking about all the possibilities, all the angles she should try, all the questions that she couldn't answer.

She was lost, a long way from home and flying solo on this one. For that one night, the bottle would be her friend. Tomorrow she would start her quest a fresh. She was going to get home to Molly, no matter what it took.


	24. Chapter 12, 2011: Scherzando

_**A/N: Two more chapters today, and two chapters tomorrow as well, since I'm still ahead with this fic! **_

_**Warning: On THURSDAY the rating is going up to M and the fic takes a seriously darker turn. You've been warned! I hope you will stick with it, remember my motto – it's alright to put everyone through the ringer as long as everything works out in the end!**_

_**~xXx~**_

**Chapter Twelve: 2011**

The walk to the convenience store was Alex's equivalent of running a marathon. In reality it was only a minute down the road, but to her exhausted body it felt like a twenty-six mile run. Inside her mind, the walk had been built up to epic proportions. It was far more than a trip to the shop to pick up some coffee. It was a story of survival. If she could just get there and buy what she needed then it would be the first step on the ladder to beating this world.

She soon found the small parade of shops; the convenience store, an off license, a betting shop and a news agent with a sign saying, _"Yes, we have What Beard? in stock!"_ placed boastfully in the window. Holding Evan's jacket tightly around her, she walked slowly to the doorway of the shop and stepped through as it opened for her. The automatic doors made her think of Gene's arrival to his office, the sight of the doors opening for him. It made her smile a little. Every memory of Gene was worth holding onto, so terrified she was of forgetting him.

She took a basket and held it tightly, trying to focus on moving one foot in front of the other. She felt so tried, so very drained. All she could do was to keep moving forward and finding the items she knew she'd need for the night.

At first the cost of the items in the shop surprised her. The £20 Robin left her wasn't going to go as far as she'd thought. _Better focus,_ she decided. _Just the essentials._

A slow, steady trip around the shop saw her basket quickly filling with items. A small jar of coffee, milk, sugar, a loaf, some butter, a tin of soup – _proper_ soup, with actual chunks of real vegetable in it, rather than something that looked like someone had taken a green piss in a saucepan – and a packet of pasta, along with a tin of sauce. Plus, a large bar of chocolate. That was as far as her money was going to stretch. And besides, her arm couldn't carry anything more.

As she walked slowly to the checkouts her attention was drawn to a product on the shelf labelled '_Quattro'_ and it made her gasp a little until she discovered it was only a razor. She lifted it up and turned it over in her hands. She considered buying it anyway – anything that made her feel closer to Gene and his world was worth keeping hold of, plus it would help her with point three on her schedule, but considering the price of the damn thing she felt food and drink were more important and put it back on the shelf.

She walked a little further and found herself at the Self-Service checkouts. Those threw her a curveball for a start. She thought they had to be a wind-up. Checking out your own products didn't make sense. How would the shop make any money? The customers would just pack their shopping in the bag without scanning it first, maybe even making some comedy _'boooop'_ noises while they pretended to swipe the bar codes.

As she tiptoed closer to the checkouts they seemed genuine enough. The other two counters were already taken up by a man and a woman respectively and they seemed to be genuinely scanning in their goods. Alex set her basket down by the side of the scanner and cautiously lifted up her tin of soup. Feeling a little self-conscious she cautiously swiped it over the machine.

"_Boooooop!"_ the machine said.

Alex took a small step back and gave a little laugh. It was _just like a real checkout_ with special "Booooop!"_ noises and everything!_

She swiped it again but nothing happened. She frowned. She wanted to hear the noise again. She tried again, and again. Nothing.

"_Please place item in bagging area!"_ the machine barked at her.

She gave a shriek of surprise and scowled at it.

"Don't tell me what to do!" she yelled, "I'm a detective chief inspector! I don't need to be told off by silly little machines!"

"_Please place item in bagging area!"_ the machine insisted.

"I'll show you," Alex snapped at it. She threw the tin of soup away somewhere behind her. "How do you like _that? Huh?"_

"_Please place item in bagging area!"_

"I'll place my _fist_ in your bagging area!" Alex told the machine crossly.

"_Please call attendant for help!"_ the machine said pleasantly.

"Please call my backside, which you will find in your bagging area!" Alex said haughtily, parking her posterior on the machine.

"_Unexpected item in bagging area!"_ the machine cried in alarm.

"Unexpected and triumphant!" Alex said with determination.

"_Maximum weight exceeded in bagging area!"_ the machine yelled.

"Now that's not polite!" Alex scowled.

"_Please call attendant for help!"_ the machine practically begged.

Alex was about to throw another insult its way when a large, burly security guard appeared before her. She looked at him a little nervously, gave him a charming smile and said,

"Hello."

"Having trouble, madam?" the guard asked.

"No… just a… difference of opinion with the machine," Alex tried to flutter her eyelashes in the guard's direction but his large hat covered enough of his field of vision for that to have no effect.

"Out," he commanded.

Alex's spirits sank.

"But I haven't bought my shopping yet," she said helplessly.

"You should have thought of that before you upset the machine," sneered the guard, _"Out!"_

Alex bity her lip. She suddenly felt very, very silly indeed.

"If it's any consolation I have been on a _lot_ of medication…"

The guard wiped his nose.

"No consolation," he said, "Out!"

Alex hung her head. Mission failed. With her hands in her pockets she slunk from the shop. So much for her lovely hot cup of coffee and warm, buttery toast. She breathed in deeply as the cold February air caused her throat to prickle and looked around her. Perhaps, she thought, there was an alternative. The off license was open. Maybe refreshments were not that far away after all.

~xXx~

As Robin pulled into the car park the first thing he spotted was a familiar car parked in one of the visitor's spaces. A moment later his eyes were drawn to someone pacing up and down the path. Inwardly he groaned.

"Oh _man,"_ he sighed, "you've _got_ to be kidding me."

He took a deep breath as he unfastened the seatbelt and tried to fight the butterflies that were chasing each other through his stomach. This was no time for nerves. He had to find the courage he needed to fight them and focus on keeping Alex safe.

He pressed the button to lock his car, tucked the keys in his pocket and found a beard walking in his direction, joined a split second later by the rest of the one man he really didn't wish to see.

"Evan," he said, trying to keep the sigh out of his voice, "what are you doing here?"

"You're not answering your phone," Evan said accusingly.

"I've been shopping," said Robin. That much at least was true. On the way home he'd bought a bumper batch of supplies to keep Alex fed and safe for a few days while they worked out where to go from there.

"Where are your bags then?" Evan asked suspiciously.

"They're in the car," frowned Robin, "what's all this about?"

Evan hesitated.

"Have you seen Alex?" he asked.

Robin felt the nerves in his stomach beginning to flip-flop around.

"Alex?" he repeated, "I haven't been back to the hospital since you warned me away."

"Has she been here?"

Robin swallowed. He certainly made a better police officer than he would a criminal. He wasn't cut out for this.

"Why would she be here?" he asked quietly, "why wouldn't she be in hospital?"

Evan gave a deep sigh.

"I bought her home to take care of her," he said, "she's having some trouble adjusting. She seems to have disappeared."

"What do you mean disappeared?"

"I don't know where she is," Evan continued, "no one has seen her."

"Well, surely she can't have gone far," Robin tried to edge toward his door but Evan followed, "she must be really weak."

"It's very important that she comes home as soon as possible," the bearded one continued, following Robin uninvited up the steps, "she'd not in a good frame of mind. I'm concerned for her safety."

"Well, if I see her," Robin continued, "I will tell you."

Evan placed one hand firmly on Robin's shoulder as he turned the key in the lock.

"If you know anything, I need you to tell me," he said.

Robin shrugged the hand away and frowned.

"You told me not to visit Alex," he said, "I haven't seen her since that day."

"Are you certain she hasn't been by here?" Evan demanded.

"Yes!" Robin cried, "for god's sake, what do you want to do? Search my flat?"

Evan didn't reply, but he did push in past him and marched through the hallway, checking in each doorway he passed. Robin could hardly believe it. This wasn't the behaviour of a sane man. And to think, _he_ was the one threatening to have _Alex_ sectioned!

Evan came to a halt in the kitchen where the light was still on.

"Leave in a hurry earlier, did you?" he asked.

"Leaving a light on deters burglars," Robin explained.

"And two half-finished cups of coffee?"

Robin felt the butterflies coming back. They were on the verge of sending him for an urgent trip to the bathroom.

"I had a visitor," he said, "a friend from work. We hadn't seen each other in a while and had some catching up to do. We just forgot about our drinks, and by the time I realised I hadn't done the shopping yet they were cold!"

Evan hesitated. He stared at the cups and the toast crumbs, then looked back at Robin.

"Alex isn't well," he began crossly, "she needs proper care. Keeping that away from her is like doing her direct physical and emotional damage."

Robin could feel the butterflies giving way to fires of anger. Evan's behaviour was really starting to worry him. The further away from him she was, the better.

"Look, _Evan," _he began crossly, remembering their phone call from the week before and his uncalled-for accusations about Robin's attachment to Alex, "I do appreciate that you've been under an awful lot of stress trying look after Alex since she woke up but I think you're developing a… slightly unhealthy obsession with me."

Evan froze.

"What?"

"All the free legal advice, dinner parties, the Christmas presents…" Robin continued, "Now, I understand that you are battling with your latent homosexuality…"

Evan's eyes bolted.

"_What?"_

"…And that trying to keep me away from Alex is your way of trying to prevent her from discovering your… _hidden tendencies," _he grasped Evan's arm firmly and began to march him down the hallway.

"_I beg your pardon?"_

"But unfortunately you're a bit too old for me," Robin continued as he reached the door, "and I'm not into beards." He opened the door and gave Evan a firm shove through. "Call me if you find her," he concluded, slammed the door and muttered, "don't hurry back though."

He closed his eyes and sank to the floor, his heart racing at a thousand beats a minute, or so it felt. He held his hands to his mouth, scarcely believing what he'd just experienced – or what he'd done. But Evan deserved it.

"Bloody hell, Alex, you're going to owe me big time for that," he mumbled, and fell flat to the ground in shock.

~xXx~

_It's amazing how much you can pick up for twenty pounds if you know where to look,_ Alex thought to herself.

The off-license beside the convenience store had provided her with a veritable array of food and drink that her treat-starved tastebuds were calling out for. A four pack of lager, a bottle of red, a two-litre bottle of coke, a 12 pack of assorted crisp flavours, a bag of pick 'n' mix, popcorn, a slab of chocolate and a great big tub of flying saucers.

"Now that's what I call dinner," Alex said happily as she struggled into Simon's old flat with the bags of goodies. By the time she reached the lounge and put her haul down she was exhausted, her body finding it difficult to cope with the strain.

She remembered sinking into the couch and closing her eyes, and that was all she could manage before sleep took her over as the exhaustion of the day took its toll upon her.

She'd been strong enough to get away from Evan and fight against his plans, but she was helpless against the demons inside her head.

X

Flashes of a man, _that_ man, that familiar man. The one who'd been plaguing her nightmares from the moment she awoke. The one who'd fired the shot in 1995 that sent a bullet onto her brain and propelled Alex into 2011.

"_You don't know me, but I read all about you."_

On the screen again, a thousand Keatses, all staring down at her. The nightmare came to her night after night and she just couldn't fight it.

"_Hi, DCI Jim Keats, Discipline and Complaints."_

There he was again, just as he always was. The dream went on, taking the same shape night after night.

"_My name's Jim and I've been looking for love in all the wrong places…"_

The look, that smile, those _eyes,_ that stare, again and again.

The images, the words, the same thing every single night.

But not this time. On this night, the dream went one step further.

CID. Litton. Led away.

And him, standing there by the door; his intense stare focused on her.

"_Do we need to talk?"_

The dream played around her. She felt like screaming. As though looking in from the outside she could see herself, bending to his will.

"_Alex?"_

She followed… followed like a lamb. Gene's eyes were staring at her from within his office, the darkness of his emotions following her out of the room like a cloud.

And then… then_ flashes_. Snippets of something.

What came next? Something was blocking it.

There was a wall around her memory, as though protecting her from something she wasn't ready to know.

Heat. _So_ much heat. The air was on fire.

She could remember his eyes as he stared at her again, and then –

_Crash!_

Alex awoke with a terrible start as one of her shopping bags toppled over onto the floor. She gave a gasp and a cry, grasping her hands to her chest as her heart rate grew ever faster. Her mouth was dry but her brow was covered in beads of sweat. She pushed back her new fringe which flopped back down, reminding her why she grew hers out in the first place.

The nightmare stayed so fresh in her mind; the new 'scene' causing her anxiety to grow. Why had she never remembered that before? Why had she blocked that out? More worryingly, what was still missing from her memory? She knew there was more to it, that something must have happened after she followed him out of the room, but her mind wouldn't let her turn the key and open the door.

With a cry of frustration she got to her feet. She needed to busy her mind, to get rid of the half-remembered moments that were eating away at her. The first thing that came to mind was alcohol so she reached into one of the bags and pulled out the bottle of red. She had assumed quite correctly that Simon wouldn't have a corkscrew lying around and she'd had the foresight to buy a screw-top bottle. She considered finding a glass but decided she needed the alcohol in her blood stream before she even had the courage to leave the room so she unscrewed the lid which took almost all of the strength she'd regained, then took a very long drink, like supping a cold bottle of water on a hot, humid day.

Eventually she stopped drinking, sat the bottle on the table, gasped to get her breath back and closed her eyes. Oh, that tasted _good._ When she had let the flavour settle upon her taste buds and the alcohol started to swim through her veins a little she decided to bring more of a civilised feel to the night. One glance at the clock showed it was nearing eleven and she had no intention of falling back to sleep to allow those nightmares to reach a conclusion so she had time to fill.

A short field-trip to Simon's old kitchen revealed all the crockery she could ever have needed. A glass, a couple of bowls and a plate duly found themselves on the table before her as she poured out the wine and started to arrange the most unhealthy of all possible buffets. Popcorn, crisps, sweets…_ oh_, she had longed for all those flavours. Her stomach was empty and gurgling like a drain. She shovelled a handful of popcorn in her mouth to wipe away the memory of the awful cabbage soup. One handful was followed by another, then a third. Eventually, as her chewing slowed down she became all too aware of the silence in the room.

It made her feel nervous. She needed to fill it somehow.

A slow and cautious walk around the room revealed a collection of objects in boxes that looked like CDs but professed to contain movies and TV shows. Eventually Alex came to realise these were those DVD things she kept hearing about.

"Well well, poor old VHS," she said quietly, "I never thought I'd see the day."

She found a few DVDs and took one out of its case.

"_Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,"_ she read from the inlay. With a sigh she crossed to the DVD player and bent down on the floor. "Well, it can't be that difficult to figure out," she muttered to herself, "it's only an overgrown CD player after all."

Without too much difficulty she managed to work out how to get the DVD player working and before she knew it the film was playing.

Through that night she watched three whole films, ate five bags of crisps and consumed three cans of lager and a bottle of wine. She finished two thirds of the coke, ate most of the pick and mix and polished off all of the popcorn. That was to say nothing of what happened to the chocolate.

By the time morning rolled around her tired eyes were lined with heavy bags from the lack of sleep, her stomach bloated with junk food, her bladder at bursting point from the alcohol and her head brimming over with concepts from movies she'd never heard of before. But her heart was still empty without Gene by her side and her plans for getting back to him were still non-existent. With the rising of the sun her spirits dropped. Another day in the wrong world, and her hope was fading fast.


	25. Chapter 12, 1995: Risoluto

_**A/N: Part 2 of today's double dose**_

**Chapter Twelve: 1995**

Simon's advice had fallen on deaf ears. Gene was not in the mood for going to sleep, nor was he in the mood for putting away the bottle and enjoying a nice, healthy glass of water instead. The more he thought about his conversation with Simon the more he began to slot the pieces into place. There was something very different about the Alex he had seen since she'd woken from her coma. It was more than amnesia, of that he was pretty certain. Even if there had been gaps in her memory she surely wouldn't have been so fundamentally different. It wasn't that she had forgotten the last fifteen years – it was that she hadn't lived through them at all.

He remembered the two Alexes, the one on the screen in 2010 and the one on the hospital floor in 1995. Both wanted to live.

He remembered Alex, fading in and out just the day before. He remembered her disappearing, waking up in her own body and then coming back to him.

What if she'd been fighting to stay? What if she'd been fighting too hard? What if she wanted to be in both places so much, so strongly, that something… _snapped?_ Something changed? Something broke inside of her and the Alex who awoke from her gunshot wound in Gene's world had found the wrong place? Taken a wrong turning?

He knew he needed to find out for sure.

~x~

As he roughly pulled on his jacket and boots, Gene knew there was only one way to know for certain whether any of the Alex he knew was left. He realised during the course of his conversation with Simon how much sense his unwanted thoughts were making. He really didn't want to go down that avenue but his mind wouldn't make any detours.

This was not his Bolly.

If Alex had somehow been 'reset', if she was back to square one, if Alex circa 2008 was back again then this was not the woman he'd shared 15 years of his life with. He didn't want to fight for all those years. He didn't want to battle and get to know her all over again. He wanted the woman back that he knew. He wanted back the woman who came back from The Railway Arms, who'd stood by his side to rebuild a crumbling world, who knew exactly what to say and do to make him complete. He didn't want to go through the last fifteen years all over again – albeit with more computers and fewer shoulder pads – he wanted _his_ Alex.

There was one question that remained. If this wasn't his Alex then where was _she?_

First things first – he had to make sure there was none of _his_ Alex left in there. If there was the smallest trace of her tucked away then he could coax her forth. He was sure of that. But if there was no trace of his Alex then he needed to know for certain, because the next step would be to find out where _his_ Alex had gone. And, frankly, that was a question that scared seven shades of shit out of him.

He knew perhaps he shouldn't be attempting the following conversation in his current state, his brain addled by lack of sleep and the effects of the half a bottle of scotch inside of him but those same factors were the ones stopping his common sense from kicking in and before he could talk himself out of it he'd slammed the door behind him and stepped out into the cold night air.

He walked slowly to Alex's flat. He needed the time to work out what he was going to say. He'd had some awkward conversations in his time but this was going to be up there with the very worst of them. It was going to be even worse than trying to explain away the sudden disappearance of Simon's Red Dwarf collection earlier that night.

He approached the flat nervously and knocked on the door. When no response came he tried a little harder. After the second attempt saw no reaction he fumbled in his pocket, mumbled _"Fuck it,"_ and pulled out his key.

X

Alex woke with a start after the second knock. She'd finally allowed the alcohol to let her slide into a troubled sleep, fraught with nightmares and cold sweats. She sat up, the silk robe still wrapped around her body. Her heart was pounding as she stared at the clock. Half past _four_ in the morning?

The sound of the key turning in the door took her anxiety up another notch. She was torn between running out to confront her intruder and hiding under the covers. Eventually she chose the fighting option, picked up a hair brush to fend off her attacker with and ran into the lounge. She found, standing in the doorway, a darker Gene Hunt than she had sent away earlier that night. His face reflected all the worries, the strain and the anger that he'd been trying to keep to a minimum.

"_You_ again!" she cried angrily, "you almost gave me a heart attack."

Gene looked grim.

"We need to talk," he said bluntly.

"I said all I needed to say when I told you to leave my flat," Alex told him.

"Then it's my turn to speak," said Gene.

Alex began to feel vulnerable and self-conscious in her robe. She pulled the belt around and tied it firmly.

"You have no right to be here," she said firmly, "I'm calling the police."

"I_ am_ the bloody police!"

"Then I'll make a citizen's arrest!"

"You're a bloody detective, woman!" Gene cried, "Make a proper arrest!"

"Don't worry, I will," Alex snapped, hairbrush held aloft.

"But before you do," Gene began, "hear me out."

Alex stared at him. There was nothing he could say that would mean a thing to her, of that she was certain.

"You'll be wasting your breath," she warned.

Gene nodded slowly, took a step inside and closed the door behind him.

"Never made me shut me gob before," he said. He looked at her seriously. There were nerves and confusion in her eyes. "I just want you to listen, then I'll leave.

Alex hesitated. Maybe this was the only way to get rid of him for good.

"Then get it over with, _'Gene'_," she sighed.

Gene took a deep breath. He looked at the floor, not sure he could meet her doubting eyes.

"Let me guess," he began, "You got shot in the head and woke up in the past. A strange place, strange time… strange people. _Well_…" he corrected himself, "all of 'em are strange except for one. The others are long gone, but I'm still here. I'll be here until the end o' time. And for the last fifteen years you've been by my side."

"I think you're delusional," Alex said, almost feeling concern for this particular construct, "I think you should seek help for these… strange notions."

"Nineteen eighty one, a new DI shows up at my station," Gene finally looked at her, "Dressed as a tart, head full of fancy ideas about psychiatry and brains. You took my team in hand and showed them there was more to life than collars and filling the cells. Shook me up an' all. Helped me survive when times started changing. Changed me, too. Despite me best efforts."

Alex stared at him. If his words were supposed to be jogging any memories they weren't working.

"I can't give you what you're looking for," she said quietly.

"And time moved on," Gene continued, "I almost lost you. Gave you up. But you came back. You knew it wasn't your time. Always_ were_ a step ahead of me. We stared hell in the face and won, Bol- _Alex,"_ he corrected, "and for a decade we've been equals. Best team this side of the millennium. Which, by the way, I'm already bloody up to my eyeballs in boredom of hearing about!" he paused to give a sigh and rub his forehead. "See, the thing is, without you it's like I lost a limb. Or half me brain. I'm not used to doing all this without you."

"All what?"

Gene felt his eyes closing before he could stop them. His mind wanted to answer _"Breathing," _but out loud he said,

"Waking up. Working. Helping them all. Getting pissed. Going to bed. Solving the clues." He sighed, "God, I could do with your _Madame Logic_ head and yer Psychology now." He shook his head slowly. "I can't get used to doing any of this on me own. And I don't want to." He began to walk slowly towards her. "I used to call Fenchurch East 'my station'. It's ours now. All of it's 'ours'. So was yer flat until you came down all Evan White on the Ts and Cs."

Alex froze.

"Evan?" she whispered, "what do you know about Evan?"

Gene ignored the question. That wasn't part of his speech.

"Every day I wake up with you beside me," he said, "and I drive you to work. Then we collaborate all day over the scum we're trying to scrape off the pavement. Then we sample the best that Fenchurch's nightlife has to offer and, if we're lucky, get to enjoy a couple of rounds o' bedroom Olympics before we fall asleep and do it all again tomorrow." He stood so close now she could smell the alcohol on his breath. "That's the life I've been living for more than a bloody decade. And if there's any of you – Alex, _my_ Alex – left inside that head," he reached out and laid his fingers against the side of her forehead, "then you'll remember it too. Every bloody day of it. And if there's not…" he exhaled, a flood of anxiety escaping in his breath, "if there's not, then I've lost everything. Everything I thought my life was about." He leaned in closer, so close he could feel the warmth of her body almost touching his. "So, Alex, tell me. Is there anything left? Anything at all?"

The look in her eyes told him everything he needed to know.

So did the knee in his groin.

As he cried in pain and doubled over, the sensation of Alex's knee making a swift upward movement into his groin being one he hadn't anticipated or prepared for.

"Get your alcohol-riddled hands – and the rest of your pickled body away from me!" she hissed.

Gene looked up at her from the puddle of pain he'd collapsed into on the floor. His last ray of hope that any of his Alex remained inside that pretty head had all but vanished. There was no doubt in his mind that this was a very familiar Alex, just not the one he wanted to see. Alex circa 1981 with a nineties twist.

He felt thankful that the alcohol had numbed his body to a degree where he only felt a fraction of the pain and regained his composure as quickly as possible. With one last cold, hard stare in her direction his heart admitted defeat, but his will was a strong as ever.

"Whoever _you_ are, I'll say goodbye," he hissed, "and the next time I see you, my Bolly will be back in that head."

"You won't be seeing me at _all,"_ Alex cried, throwing the hairbrush at him, "I'll be talking to your super first thing in the morning! Your job will soon be a distant memory. Get out. Go!"

Gene tried to straighten up a little, then slowly left the flat. The violent knee had hurt his tackle and the reaction had hurt his pride, but at least now he knew for certain. Something had happened – he didn't have a clue what was behind it but his Alex had vanished and a new Alex had taken her place. He wanted his Alex back. _Needed_ her back, for all the reasons he'd listed and so many more.

For now, he was going to go and seek comfort in the other half of his bottle of scotch. Them tomorrow, when the Alka-Seltzer had done its job and he could stand being in daylight again, he was going to work out where the hell the Bolly he'd spent fifteen years getting to know had gone – that was phase one toward getting her back. Phase two? Well, the next step would have to wait until he was sober.


	26. Chapter 13, 2011: Fortepiano

_**A/N: So, today's double dose are the last two T-rated chapters. Tomorrow the rating will change to M and everything will shift a gear. There will be two more chapters tomorrow and possibly 2 chapters on Friday and then I'm all caught up! Ha, so this is what it's like having a working keyboard!**_

**Chapter Thirteen: 2011**

Robin was wracked with guilt as he finally pulled up into the grounds of Simon's old flat just before eight in the morning. Leaving Alex all by herself for that length of time hadn't been part of the plan. Ideally he would have liked to head back in the early hours of the morning, maybe 3 or 4, sneak in under cover of darkness and make sure she was OK. Evan, however, had other ideas.

To Robin's dismay, when he had gone back out to get the shopping, he found Evan still sat outside in his car. When he peered out his window an hour later, there he was again. In fact, all night Robin made frequent Evan checks out of the window and every time, there he was in his car.

"Oh _Evan_, get a life," he sighed at around five after he'd grabbed a little sleep and _still_ found the car parked outside.

But Robin was patient. He knew the opportunity would arise. And sure enough, just after half past seven the inevitable happened. Evan needed to take a leak. The second Robin saw him fidgeting around in the car he knew the time was coming closer and finally he was rewarded with the sight of Evan stepping out of the door and hopping from one foot to the other as he ran around the side of the building. With a triumphant cry Robin grabbed the shopping and the keys, ran out of his flat, down the steps and right up to his car. As he jumped in and pulled away without even fastening his seatbelt he was sure Evan hadn't even finished pulling up his zip.

It had been a battle of wills, and there was only ever going to be one winner. After all, Robin had the binoculars while Evan had a large bottle of mineral water. And a very cheesy beard.

Finally he'd managed to return to Alex. Although he had left her Simon's old set of keys he still had his own front door key which he refused to take from his keyring. That was one of the few ties he had left binding him to Simon's memory. As he carried the bag of shopping through the corridor and arrived at the doorway of the flat he thought about how lost and scared Alex had seemed the night before. He wondered what state he would find her in. He had no idea, no idea at all.

However, he had certainly not expected it to be inebriated, bloated and singing _Mad World_ at the top of her voice.

He felt quite alarmed as he followed the singing through to the lounge and found her looking rather pie-eyed, sprawled across the couch amid a sea of junk food while the closing titles to Donnie Darko graced the TV screen.

"_I find it kind of funny, I find it kind of sad…"_ Alex's voice continued, "_The dreams in which I'm dying are the best I've ever had…"_

"_Don't sing that!"_ Robin cried, running to the television and switching it off.

Alex hadn't heard him arrive and jumped off of the couch in surprise. She dusted some crumbs from her front and looked at him a little guiltily.

"W-why not?" she asked.

"_Because!"_ cried Robin. That was the only reason he had. Hearing those lyrics coming from her mouth had shaken him up a little. He picked up the three DVD cases from the table. "What the hell have you been watching?" he cried, _"Donnie Darko, Twenty-Eight Days Later _and _Eternal Sunshine?"_ His expression reflected a little sadness as he reached the last title. It held fond memories for him and Simon, a real back-row-of-the-cinema thing. He shook his head. "Isn't your current situation complicated enough? You really need to add all manner of weird, complex metaphysical and science fiction concepts to the mix? And you're supposed to put the discs back in their cases when you've watched them, or they'll get lost!"

Alex felt like she was getting told off by her mother.

"Sorry," she mumbled.

"And," he looked in horror at the empty cans and the bottle on the table, "Beer, wine – Alex, how much alcohol exactly have you had?"

"Not much," Alex said innocently, "look, there's still one whole can left!" She hiccupped loudly.

"Alcohol after a coma!" Robin threw his hands in the air, "what on earth were you thinking? It could interfere with your medication or anything."

"It won't!"

"How do you know?"

"Because I forgot to bring my medication when I ran away…" Alex said sheepishly

Robin sighed.

"Oh, _Alex…"_ he stopped as he heard her stomach give a monstrous groan. She turned an interesting shade of vermillion. Robin had never seen a person turn so red.

"That's the cabbage soup," she bluffed.

"Oh right," Robin scolded, "that famous cabbage soup made by _Walkers,_ I presume?" he picked up an empty crisp packet. "How much of this crap have you eaten?"

"I was hungry!" Alex protested, "I've been on minuscule portions of cardboard and green water for weeks!"

"Yeah, because you need to work your way up, not dive in at the deep end and land in a swimming pool filled with junk food," Robin cried, trying to ignore her as she stifled a burp, "what were you thinking?"

"_You_ left me the money!" Alex protested.

"Yeah, for coffee, bread, milk – _sensible_ food and drink!" cried Robin, "Why didn't you buy things like that?"

"Because they didn't have any of those things in the off-licence," Alex said matter-of-factly.

"What were you doing in the off-licence in the first place?" cried Robin, "I told you to go to the convenience store!"

"I got thrown _out_ of the convenience store," Alex said haughtily.

"Thrown out?" cried Robin, "How? _Why?"_

"For abusing the self-service check-outs," Alex said a little guiltily.

Robin stared at her. He took a deep breath. The guilt was growing stronger.

"_Shit,"_ he whispered, "look at the state of you." He looked down. "I left you on your own in a world you didn't know." He looked back at her sheepishly. "I'm sorry," he said quietly, "I'm _really _sorry. It's taken me all night to get Evan off my tail."

Alex's eyes opened wide.

"He didn't follow you here did he?" she whispered.

"No," Robin said quickly, "but it was the first time I was able to get away. He knows I know where you are, I'm sure of it, but he has no proof and he won't find you here."

He sighed and surveyed the mess, from the empty bags and wrappers on the table to the state of Alex, with chocolate across her cheek and crumbs covering Simon's old shirt. The sight of her wearing it caused Robin to choke just a little. It had been so long since he'd seen that shirt. The sight of it on someone else, over-sized and crumb-ridden as it was, made him feel very strange indeed. He looked down and drew in his breath to compose himself a little.

"Look," he began, "I think maybe the best thing you can do now is to lay down for a while. Try to sleep off some of those units. Let your stomach digest some of that crap before you explode." He saw her face fall a little. "What? What's the matter?"

Alex swallowed. She seemed to find it difficult to express the thoughts on her mind.

"I don't want to sleep," she said quietly.

"What? Why?"

She looked at him seriously and met his gaze.

"Because I'm scared, Robin," she whispered.

"What of? Evan?"

Alex shook her head.

"The nightmares," she whispered.

"What nightmares?"

Alex took a deep breath as she slowly sank into the sofa. She stared at the ground beneath her feet. For one long month she'd been plagued by them but not once had she been able to express her demons. Not once had she been able to talk of them.

"Every night I have them," she whispered, "ever since I woke up. Night after night, they're always there. Always the same." She felt Robin sit down beside her as his hand reached out to touch hers gently.

"Go on," he whispered.

Alex gulped in a breath. There was a feeling of nausea inside of her and it wasn't from the alcohol or junk food.

"But last time," she whispered, "It went on longer. There was more to it. It scared me. It scared me so much. But what scared me more… was not knowing what would come next."

Robin chewed anxiously on his lip.

"What happens in your nightmares?" he asked quietly.

"They're all about him," Alex whispered.

"Who?"

"That man," Alex could hardly speak, "every single night." She turned her head slowly to face Robin. "Keats."

Instantly Robin bristled and an intense sensation of anger filled his body.

"_Keats?"_ he spat.

Alex nodded slowly.

"They're half-forgotten memories," she whispered, "Things that I know happened but can't quite place. And I know that they…" she trailed off.

"Go on," Robin urged.

She swallowed.

"I know they can only get worse," she whispered.

A silence descended between them, one that neither knew how to fill. Eventually, Robin began to speak.

"Simon had nightmares," he said quietly. His words caused Alex to look at him. "After he came back from his time in Gene's world… the first time around, I mean. They were of Keats as well." He flinched at the sheer memory of those awful, heart-wrenching weeks. "Every single night, he was there in his dreams. Wouldn't go away. In the end the nightmares had to reach their peak before they would stop. He had to know why he was having them. Then, when he finally understood, they couldn't hurt him as much any more."

Alex hesitated. She understood what he was saying.

"That's the problem," she whispered, "I'm terrified of finding out why I'm having them."

Robin nodded slowly.

"I know," he whispered, "but you're not on your own now. I'm going to be right here. I'll be here while you sleep and here when you wake up. And if you have another nightmare, you'll finally have someone to tell."

Alex hesitated. She breathed deeply, the thought of facing another nightmare burning her inside. She felt so tired though, so incredibly tired. The alcohol was sending her mind into dizzy, spinning circles and the junk food sat in her stomach like a brick. The nights of fear and confusion had built up inside her into an overwhelming sense of exhaustion. She exhaled loudly and, finally nodded.

"Alright," she whispered.

Robin gave her a thin, worried smile. He stood up and held out his hand.

"Come on," he said gently, "I'll put you to bed.

Alex hesitated.

"Bed?"

"It's really comfy," he assured her, "you'll be out like a light in no time."

Alex sighed.

"Unfortunately it looks like the squatter shared your sentiments," she said quietly.

Robin sighed.

"Bugger," he said, "couch it is then."

As he helped Alex to settle on the couch as comfortably as she possibly could, Robin could see the anxiety on her face. That very same look was the one he saw on Simon's face at bed time every single night after his brush with Keats in 1985. At the time Simon had refused to let Robin in for so very long. It was weeks before he was able to help him overcome them. He wasn't going to let Alex go through that same loneliness any longer.

As he sank into an arm chair and kept one eye on her, he watched her slowly slip into a shallow, uncomfortable sleep. How long she would be able to doze for, he didn't know. He hoped that her sleep would be peaceful and free from Keats but even if it wasn't then he'd be there when she woke up.

As he felt sleep beginning to gnaw away at him too, a thought passed idly through his mind, wondering why Keats was plaguing her nightmares so. Did he have a part to play in her strange memory loss? Would he have a part to play in getting her home?

Those thoughts only came to him momentarily as he joined Alex in a shallow slumber. Sleep had been only too willing to accept them.

Unfortunately, they would soon be wishing that it hadn't.


	27. Chapter 13, 1995: Parlando

_**A/N: The second of today's 2 chapters, then tomorrow the rating goes up x**_

**Chapter Thirteen: 1995**

Simon was late for work. He was _never _late for work.

He wasn't sure what had happened. He knew he hadn't managed to get a lot of sleep but he didn't know how he had slept through the alarm. Then he noticed the alarm clock was flashing and cursed.

"Bloody power cut!" he cried, scrabbling off the floor and grabbing his clothes.

He sent the next ten minutes trying to fit half an hour of pre-work routine into a third of that time – cleaning his teeth, shaving, cramming breakfast down his throat… there was no time for a coffee, nor for sorting out his hair. He stared in frustration at his reflection as the developing curls escaped their blow-dried prison from the day before.

"I really, _really_ need a haircut," he mumbled.

He tried to eat toast and button his shirt simultaneously which resulted in a lot of interesting stains on his clothes and a mouthful of fabric but finally he was ready to leave. Just before he opened the door, the telephone rang. He answered it curiously. No one_ ever_ called him.

"Hello?" he frowned.

His face began to fall as he listened to the voice on the line. His favourite word was on the tip of his tongue throughout but he managed to wait until the end of the call to express it.

"_Shit,"_ he breathed finally. A pause. "I'll be right there. Give him a black coffee. And don't let him have any more scotch."

With that he rushed through the door, slamming it behind him and raced to the car.

~xXx~

"_Why didn't I make him go to bed?"_ Simon muttered to himself as he marched through the corridors of Fenchurch East, _"I knew he'd had too much, I should have stayed up… should have seen him to bed. Ow!"_ he walked into a door, felt like an idiot, changed direction and carried on walking while berating himself.

He arrived in CID where Gene was draped over a desk, face down, while Terry and Bammo were busy sticking post-it notes on his back. They looked up a little guiltily as Simon arrived.

"He's, err… had a bit too much," Terry explained.

"I can see that," sighed Simon. He crossed to Gene and knelt down in front of him. "Gene?" No response. He glanced up. "How long has he been here?"

"Rolled in an hour ago," said Bammo, "it was quite funny at first. Haven't seen him like this for years. Then he passed out on the desk and we thought someone needed to take a look at him."

"I'm not a bloody doctor!" cried Simon, "Or his mother. What did you call me for?"

Terry and Bammo shrugged at each other.

"We thought you were the one person who'd definitely be sober," said Terry.

Simon sighed and looked back at Gene.

"Gene?" he tried again, _"Gene?"_ He gave him a slap to the cheek which raised a sight groan but nothing else. He glanced up at Terry and Bammo in concern. "Do you think I should try punching him?"

"Do it and you'll be eating yer fist for breakfast," Gene's voice came from somewhere on the desk. Simon looked on with a little relief as Gene's head slowly rose up. "I'm awake. I'm awake."

Simon closed his eyes for a moment. He'd started to think Gene had truly pickled himself this time.

"Gene, what the hell's happened?" he asked.

"The only kind of Bolly I've got left is the one that comes in a bottle," Gene mumbled with a hiccup.

"Shit," Simon sighed. He stood up and rubbed his head. Gene might have been the one putting it away all night but Simon was the person who was fast developing a headache. "Come on, I'll take you home."

"Not got a home," Gene mumbled as Terry and Bammo helped Simon drag him to his feet.

Simon groaned as they unloaded the full weight of Gene onto him and he staggered a little under the strain.

"It's alright, I've got him," Simon mumbled, wishing he wasn't quite so lanky and skinny. If this was going to become a regular occurrence he was going to have to join a gym.

"I might turn the inside of yer car an interesting shade o' vomit," Gene warned.

"Do it and die," mumbled Simon.

~xXx~

Somehow Gene managed to keep the several thousand units he appeared to have consumed safely within his innards on the short journey back to Simon's flat. It was with some difficulty that Simon managed to drag him up a long flight of stairs and unload him through the front door.

"That's the last time you're left unsupervised with a bottle of scotch," he mumbled.

"You've got ropey carpets, Shoebury," Gene mumbled a little incoherently.

"Well, I should leave you to become more acquainted with them," Simon muttered crossly, "but as long as you try not to unload your scotch into it I'll let you have the bed."

He managed to drag Gene through to the bedroom and let him drop onto the bed, a little unceremoniously, causing Gene to let out a strange kind of _"Oof!"_ noise that sounded like a cartoon character getting kicked in the guts.

"Yer bed's bouncy," he mumbled as Simon hauled his legs up onto it.

"It's a _bed,"_ Simon muttered, "they usually are." He took a step back and surveyed the scene. "What the hell_ happened?"_

Gene gave a groan.

"Don't know, Shoebury," he mumbled, "I can usually hold me drink."

"How much have you had?"

"Not enough to forget your bloody jumper," mumbled Gene.

"You need water," Simon told him crossly, "Water and strong, black coffee."

Gene opened one eye and tried to focus. There were several Simon's spinning round in a circle.

"You're a good man, Simon," he mumbled, "you're not like all the others."

"Why?" Simon snapped, deciding to get the jibes out the way before Gene had a chance, "because I'm fluent in geek and take it up the backside?"

"You're not going to leave me," Gene mumbled, "They all leave me in the end… Ray, Chris, Malcolm… even Sam. You would have liked Sam."

"Sam?" Simon frowned, "Who's Sam?"

"Was my DI," mumbled Gene, "you and 'im would have a lot in common. Names both start with an 'S' for a start." He paused as Simon tried to push him further onto the bed to stop him rolling off, struggled to move his bulk and gave up. "He wore a leather jacket. And, Bolly… she _also_ used to wear a leather jacket. A white one." He frowned at Simon. "You never wore a leather jacket."

"No, just a Noel Edmonds jumper, right?" Simon sighed, "look, I'm going to get you some water, some coffee and an Alka-Seltzer, and then you're going to sleep this off."

Gene watched him as he turned to leave.

"Shoebury?"

Simon stopped in his tracks and closed his eyes for a moment. He wasn't sure he wanted to hear any more of Gene's intoxicated mumblings.

"_Yes?"_

Gene's expression was different as Simon turned around. A sudden look of sobriety had fallen upon his face.

"Alex," he said.

Simon hesitated.

"What about her?"

Gene hesitated.

"It's not her, Simon."

"What do you mean, _it's not her?"_

Gene shook his head a little, a motion that sent his brain rattling around inside his head.

"I went to see her. That's not my Bolly. That's someone else."

Simon hesitated. He wanted to berate Gene for thinking it was a good idea to go to see her in that condition, but the look on Gene's face stopped him. He was already suffering enough. He looked down.

"I'm sorry," he said quietly.

"Got a knee in me balls. Solid proof right there."

Simon flinched.

"Oh god," he sighed.

"So," Gene continued, "just had to give meself a night to accept it. Few glasses of the good stuff, get it out my system."

"That's what worries me," frowned Simon, "It'll all come out your system and onto my bed!"

Gene sighed.

"Give me one night to get used to losing 'er,"he mumbled, "then tomorrow, 'elp me work out how to get 'er back."

Simon hesitated. He watched Gene's eyes close and his mouth fall open as an instant sleep took him over and a loud snore emerged from his lips.

"It _is_ tomorrow," he said quietly.

He placed the bin beside the bed in case Gene needed a sudden alcohol evacuation and slipped quietly from the room to let the lion sleep.

~x~

Sinking slowly into the couch Simon pulled the phone onto his lap, lifted the receiver and dialled a familiar number. It was shocking how fast the direct lines at Fenchurch East had burrowed their way into his memory. He sighed and waited for his call to be answered.

"CID?"

"Kim, it's me," Simon sighed again, "can you do me a favour?"

There was a moment of hesitation.

"Does it involve recording one of your favourite science fiction shows?" she asked.

"No."

"Then fire away."

Simon dropped his voice a little.

"In my office you'll find a man called Peter Vickery," he said, "tell him I'm not coming in today and give him a bunch of paperwork."

"What paperwork?"

"Any paperwork," said Simon, "it doesn't matter what you give him. He'll swear, mumble and hide in the toilets."

There was a pause.

"Alright," Kim said finally, "uh, why aren't you coming in? You're not pulling a sicky because I hid your _Secrets of the X-Files_ video are you?"

Simon dropped his voice a little more.

"No, it's Gene," he said quietly.

"What do you mean?"

Simon rubbed his forehead.

"Terry called me," he began, "Gene came into work legless. I had to pick him up."

"What the hell's happened now?"

"I think he went to see Alex in the night and she wasn't very happy about it," Simon hissed, "it sounds like there was a bollock-kicking incident."

"_Yeow,"_ Kim tried not to laugh.

"I know," sighed Simon, "Total and utter Galex fail."

"_Galex?"_

"You know," Simon sighed, "when you mix the names of two people who are going out and…" he sighed, "maybe they weren't doing that then. What year were you from again?"

"Two thousand and three," Kim said quietly.

Simon thought for a second.

"I don't think it was fashionable then," he said.

"Either that or I didn't know about it because I was too busy having _a life?"_ Kim suggested.

Simon raised a little smile but couldn't quite manage to laugh.

"Anyway," he said quietly, "I brought him home and put him to bed."

"He doesn't need a babysitter," said Kim, "I'm sure he's been paralytic before."

"This is… different," Simon said quietly, "there's other stuff. Stuff about Alex. I think someone had better be here in case he wakes up."

"Alright, fine," Kim understood, "anything I can do?"

"You might want to bring home some Alka-Seltzer," Simon suggested.

"Good idea," Kim agreed. She paused for a moment and Simon thought she was about to hang up, but instead she asked eventually, "and how are you?"

"What do you mean?" Simon frowned, "I'm not the one who's turned into a bottle of scotch."

"You were acting pretty strangely last night," Kim pointed out, "you seemed a bit weird."

"So would you if you'd had ten tons of piss taken out of your jumper," Simon pointed out.

"You can talk to me, you know," said Kim, "if you've got something on your mind."

"What would I have on my mind?" Simon began, "according to you and Gene the only things I ever think about are Red Dwarf, The X-Files and how to become Geek of the Year!"

"Hey, that's not fair," Kim said.

Simon sighed and closed his eyes.

"Sorry," he said quietly. Hew flinched at the sound of retching coming from his bedroom, "Look, I've got to go. I think Gene's just caused an environmental disaster in my bedroom."

There was a moment of horrified silence on the line.

"In that case," Kim said eventually, "I'm back on the couch tonight."

Simon sighed.

"I'll see you later," he told her and hung up with a sigh. "I just hope to god Gene found the bin in time," he said.


	28. Chapter 14, 2011: Volti Subito

_**A/N: From here on in the rating is now M and things will get darker before they get better – you have been warned! – 2 Chapters today and 2 tomorrow, then back to 1 chapter a day. Thank you so much for your reviews and alerts and reading so far x**_

**Chapter Fourteen: 2011**

Two figures tossed and turned as troubled and uncomfortable sleep took hold of them. With the curtains drawn and minimal light filtering in from outside, the lounge of Simon's old flat was like a bubble separated from the rest of the world in which time stood still, yet moved with the pace of a shooting star across the sky. In the near silence the only noises to be heard were incidental; the twittering of a bird on the roof, the gentle ticking of the clock on the side, an angry bubbling from Alex's guts and a tiny snore as Robin's mouth fell open in his cramped position in the arm chair. Somewhere outside a car horn beeped as the traffic moved by like a never-ending snake of metal, while the DVD player whirred as it loaded the menu over and over again.

So still. So peaceful.

And yet, inside their minds, things couldn't have been more different as angry images and voices screamed through their subconscious thoughts.

~xXx~

Robin could hear his voice, but he couldn't see his face; the man running away. He could hear him shouting a torrent of swear words as he fled. Robin could feel his legs pounding across the ground as he gave chase. Who was the stranger with the scraggly hair so severely matted down the back of his neck? Why was he running so fast?

He could hear himself screaming at the man to stop, making declarations of him being under arrest but the man showed no signs of stopping. Then there was a face on the horizon; someone he wasn't expecting. Someone he didn't want to see. A beard with an Evan attached to it.

"_You're not taking Alex away from me_," he cried as the other man turned around and fired a gun at Robin. The dream went black - _everything_ went black except for a split second glimpse of the inside of a car and pain spreading through his limbs. For an instant, just an instant, he thought he saw Simon sitting beside him with his hands on the wheel but as soon as it had started the dream stopped, his eyes flew open and he awoke with a start.

"_Shit!"_ he cried, jumping out of the chair. He tried to pace a little, the nerves that his dream had inflicted upon him sending his heart into a double-time motion. He breathed deeply, in and out, until his pulse slowed a little and his hands stopped shaking. He placed his palm to his forehead, surprised to find it covered with beads of sweat.

The images from his nightmare confused him. They made very little sense. He shook his head a little to try to get rid of Evan and the man with the scraggly hair from his mind's eye but that just left him with the split second image of Simon to contemplate and that made his heart sink with sadness.

He sat back in the chair and gave a long, deep, pained sigh. Glancing at Alex, he could tell her sleep was just as troubled as his own had been. Squirming around on the couch with her face contorted in pain, he knew that - whatever was going on inside her head - she would need him to stay right there by her side. Pretty soon, he could tell, those dark dreams would come forth as a cry or a scream and the demon would be unleashed. How the hell had she survived the last month of confusion, pain and utter desperation by herself with no one to turn to? It killed him inside to think of it. He just hoped he could be to her what she had been to Simon in 1985.

"What goes around comes around," he whispered quietly, watching her whimper, and prepared for the worst.

~xXx~

There it was again - the dream. The TV screens, his face, his eyes. The speed dating, his smile, that look. And the dream went on again; Litton's arrest, watching as he was led away, and that stare again… that deep, dark stare.

But this time things were different. This time, the dream went on.

Right out if the door, with Keats at her side.

X

**1983.**

"_Do we need to talk?"_

She didn't want to follow him. She didn't want to give up on Gene, but things weren't adding up. She fought internally, over and over again, trying to make sense of the conflicting clues. She could feel Gene's eyes on her. She glanced to see him staring from his office and wished she still trusted him the way she used to but something wasn't right, and it hadn't been for a while.

"_Alex?_"

Keats spoke again, pulling Alex out of her train of thought. She looked at him; saw that expression on his face, the one that made it very hard to say no even if she'd wanted to. There was something in his eyes. A look that bore right into her. There was something about this man, this strange and powerful man that had broken through her defences from the moment she met him. In fact, from before that. From the moment she'd seen him on the television screen during her coma-within-a-coma.

She found herself walking through the open door and glancing back at Gene, almost helpless to fight the compulsion. She caught a glimpse of the look Keats threw Gene's way. She couldn't quite understand it but it was the look of someone who had almost won the war.

Like a zombie she marched down to Keats's office. She stood back as he opened the door for her and bowed her head as she stepped through. There was a part of her that didn't want to meet his eye, afraid of what she might do if she allowed herself to give in. She heard the door close behind them and stood facing the wall, her back to him for a moment.

"Is there anything you need to tell me, Alex?"

Alex closed her eyes and pressed her palms lightly against the wall, leaning forward just slightly. She breathed in deeply. The atmosphere of the room seemed thick and heavy.

"Litton didn't deserve that," she said quietly.

She heard the sound of liquid pouring into a glass behind her but still didn't dare turn around.

"Procedures are there to be followed," Keats's voice echoed around the room. A hand appeared in front of her holding a glass filled with something strong. She took it but still couldn't look up.

"Sometimes I don't know what you're really trying to do here," she said, a note of anger creeping into her voice.

"You know what I'm doing," Keats told her, "I thought we were on the same side."

"I'm starting to wonder _what_ side you're on," Alex told him.

"Alex," Keats began. He grew tired of talking to the side of her head and reached out to turn her around. He laid his fingers on her cheek and moved her slowly. "_Alex,"_ he said a little more gently. Even though her face had turned in his direction her eyes were focused on the floor. Placing two fingers gently under her chin, he brought her face up toward his until she had no option but to look him in the eye. "This isn't an easy job, you know. I'm not supposed to be the enemy but it's not like I'm making friends either. I could just do with one now and then."

"_Friends,"_ Alex began, a little crossly, "don't use others for their own means."

"I'm not using you," Keats told her, "we both want to know the truth about Hunt. We're just helping each other to dig it up."

"I don't think I want to know any more," Alex said quietly, realising his fingers were still resting on her chin. She swallowed involuntarily as his deep, dark eyes began to do something to her. It was a gradual hastening of her heartbeat, a rising of her pulse, a tremble in her hands. She took a step back and sipped quickly from her glass, trying to steady the nerves that she found taking her over.

"You're scared - that's natural," Keats told her. He leaned against the wall beside her, gave her a smile that hid a thousand intentions. "But you've come so far. You have to see this through, Alex. Don't let me down now."

_Let him down?_ Alex wanted to confront him on that point. What she was doing, she wasn't doing for him. That was true enough. She _wanted_ to confront him about it, to correct him and tell him not to put words in her mouth, but as she tried to speak she found a wave of gentle nausea and a sense of disorientation sweep over her. She closed her eyes for a moment and pulled the top of her turtleneck jumper away from her skin.

"God, Jim, why is your room always so hot?" she breathed.

"Take your coat off," he advised.

Alex hesitated. She breathed slowly, trying to stop the warm air from overcoming her.

"It's a dress," she said quietly.

Keats looked her over with interest.

"Oh, right," he said, raising an eyebrow, "Sorry. My mistake."

The heat began to creep into every inch of her body. She could feel herself perspiring all the way down her back and her cheeks were beginning to flush, but she wasn't sure whether that was from the heat or the look in his eyes. She leaned back against the wall a little.

"I need air," she whispered.

Keats ignored her. Either that or he didn't hear.

"About what I asked you earlier," he began, "how much do you trust Hunt?"

Alex ran her tongue across her lips.

"With my life," she replied without question.

"And how much do you think he trusts you?"

Alex looked at him curiously. The question had taken her by surprise.

"He… we're partners," Alex began, "working partners," she was quick to clarify.

"But how much does he _trust_ you?"

"I would hope he trusts me every bit as much as I trust him," she whispered. She closed her eyes as her head began to feel fuzzier still.

"And yet he won't even tell you the truth about Sam Tyler," Keats reminded her. He noted that she didn't reply. After a few moments of silence passed he continued. "If he won't talk to you about something like that then what else is he keeping from you?" He watched her face falling, her heart being eaten up inside by the worms his words of doubt had implanted there inside her. Her hands clasped around her glass as though she needed to hold onto it to stay afloat in a sea of anxiety. He stepped closer, gently laid his hands on her shoulders and slowly ran them down her arms to her elbows where they lingered before travelling all the way back up again. "Look, Alex," he breathed gently over her shoulder, "I'm sorry if I sound like I'm coming down on you too hard. The thing is, I'm worried about you."

"I can take care of myself," Alex said quietly, the hot, muggy atmosphere stifling her breath.

"I'm sure you can," Keats told her, "but Hunt has a habit of catching people when they're vulnerable. Wearing them down. Taking their heart away." She could feel his breath against her neck. "Don't let him do that to you."

"I told you, I can look after myself," said Alex. She felt a sudden dizziness descend over her and put her palm to her head as the glass fell from her hands and bounced along the ground without smashing while the potent liquid from within splashed across her dress. "God, I feel…" she felt hands supporting her and guiding her gently forward toward a chair.

"Woah, Alex," Keats's voice was warm; concerned, "careful. You're looking pale."

"It's too hot," Alex whispered. Something was happening, taking over her mind and clouding it. She felt heady as though something was in the air, overcoming her and taking away control of her body.

"Take this heavy dress down," Keats told her gently, "you're all dressed up for a winter walk, not sitting in a stuffy office."

"No," Alex shook her head slowly but her mind was spinning so much that her eyes closed tightly and she knew that to open them would only bring another spin of the room.

"Come on," Keats told her gently, "there's no one else here. No one will see. There's just me." He knelt in front of her and coaxed her to open her eyes. "You trust me, don't you Alex?"

She looked into his eyes. _Those eyes_. That stare. The one he'd fixed her with so many times before. Those eyes reached into her mind and layered it with trust and belief in him, so slowly she nodded. She tried to unfasten the belt around her waist but her fingers were rebelling, not doing what they were supposed to do.

"_Damn,"_ she whispered, the heat getting to her more with every second that passed.

"Here, let me," Keats reached out and smoothly unfastened the buckle, let it fall limply against the chair then followed by working on the zip while Alex slipped her arms out of the dress and let it drop away from her. The relief at shedding the hot, heavy garment outweighed any self-consciousness or embarrassment she might have felt. She leaned back, closed her eyes and fanned herself gently with her hand. There was something in the air. She didn't know what it was, but it was increasing, sneaking onto every muscle of her body. "How do you feel?"

She breathed deeply as her eyes opened again and she looked at him, staring at her so intensely. What was it about him that made her feel this way; overwhelmed? Unable to think for herself? He'd been gradually sneaking inside her head ever since she awoke from her coma within a coma.

"_Strange,"_ she whispered. Her head lolled a little. Her description encapsulated everything about her bizarre state. She felt a little intoxicated. Almost high. She could only compare it to the feeling of the gas and air she'd been given when she had Molly; that same strange and fuzzy feeling in the head, the mix of dizziness and euphoria that tried to drown out the screaming of the pain within her.

She felt his hand caress her cheek gently and she gasped a little in surprise. She looked at him, hardly believing he'd taken such a step but the look in his eyes as he gazed at her confirmed that his action was deliberate. There was a softness about his expression. It was a fondness she hadn't seen on his face before. It made her head spin a little faster and took her breath away.

"Hunt doesn't take proper care of you," he said gently as his thumb stroked her cheek, "he never has done, has he Alex? Not from the moment you arrived."

"I can take care of myself," she reiterated her earlier words but there was a gasp in her speech as his touch stole the breath from her body. She felt a jolt in her heart as it started to speed up, her pulse thumping as blood surged around her body at double-time. There was a twitching down below, seated squarely between her legs. She drew back a little in shock and her mouth fell open. She felt an overwhelming sense of confusion and anger at herself for the direction her thoughts were going in, as well as for the way her body reacted to his touch. "No, Jim, don't."

"Why not?" Keats's hot breath sizzled against her cheek as he leaned a little closer. "You still feel some kind of misguided loyalty towards Gene, Alex? You're _work _partners. You said it yourself. Face it, he missed that boat long ago and he's left you hanging on and following him around like a lost sheep ever since."

The hand against her cheek was joined by another as he cupped her face and stared right into her eyes. She felt herself melting, right there and then. Oh _god,_ it had been so long. Such a very long time since anyone had made her feel that way. How long had it been since she felt the touch of a hand against her skin? How long had it been since anyone made her feel on fire?

"When were you last kissed, Alex?" he whispered. She looked at him in shock. It felt as though he'd stolen the thoughts right out of her head. "When did someone warm those lips?"

Alex tried to reply. Her lips moved slightly as she tried to coax out a reply but her voice wouldn't co-operate. It _had _been such a long time. It had been two years… two long years since a stupid, fumbled encounter with a faceless man whose only feature she could still picture were his red braces. And before that… before _that_, she couldn't even remember. She'd always been busy; busy with work, with Molly, with all those reports and files and case notes. Busy with the Sam Tylers of the world and their strange states of psychosis. She didn't have time for passion. Passion belonged to other people. She was starting to realise now how much she'd missed it. How much she needed it.

"I don't want…" she tried to protest but her body said something different as her eyes closed and she leaned forward, drawn magnetically toward him. She breathed in and caught his scent as her lips felt his against them. A swirl of emotion and thought enveloped her at that moment – the fear, the excitement, the guilt, the anticipation – all of them circled her like a never-ending cyclone that finally ceased abruptly as it all faded away to let her concentration focus on the sensation of the kiss; the illicit, dangerous, unexpected kiss.

She found herself pulling away, so absorbed by the moment that she almost took his lips away with her, and breathed,

"No, Jim, we can't – it's not right."

"Look me in the eye and tell me that," he told her desperately. She opened her eyes and stared into those dark pupils again. The same ones that had taken her over before. There was definitely something in the air – something taking control. _Fumes…_ something slipping through her nostrils and grasping her senses, twisting them around, making her helpless to fight her animal instincts.

"We can't –" she began but her eyes defied her. They closed again as he cupped her face and pulled her in closer for a second locking of their lips. This time she felt so absorbed by him that she gave a gasp as electricity ran through her body. She tried to fight it – tried to fight the dampening between her legs and the heat spreading across her chest, but she was only human. She needed to feel the heat as much as anybody else. She_ needed _to feel needed, wanted and desired and right there and then that's exactly how she felt.

Her body just opened up to her desire. Something overtook her that she couldn't explain. She leaned back and gave in to the moment, just wanting him to take the lead. While usually she had a strong need to be in control, the presence of Keats brought to her a submissive quality she'd never felt before. She just wanted to be taken – wanted to be shown the way. Her body felt so heavy… so tired. She wanted him to take the unbearable heat in the room and turn it into action. She wanted him to set her on fire.

She felt his hands around the top of her thick tights and slowly lifted herself up enough for him to pull them down her legs. As they reached the halfway point she felt them stop and opened her eyes to see what the problem was. She found him looking at her.

"_Tell me, Alex,"_ his face was urgent; burning with need, _"tell me no and I'll stop right now."_

"We shouldn't…" she tried one last protest but there was no force behind it.

"That's not a 'no'," Keats told her.

"But, _Gene _–"

"Don't think about him," Keats whispered, "he's had his chance, and what's he done? Pickled himself half to death and left you to fend for yourself. He's missed his chance, Alex. You know that. We both know that. But the question is, do you want this? Here? Now?"

For just a moment Alex stared at him. The look in his eyes was like nothing she had ever seen before. It made the burning between her legs grow stronger and she couldn't fight it, even if she wanted to. She whispered something inaudibly.

"What's that, Alex?"

"_Yes,"_ she whispered.

"Are you sure?"

"_Yes!"_

That was as much as he needed to hear. As quick as anything her tights were discarded on the ground and her knickers followed suit just a moment later. The heat and the atmosphere acted like a tranquilizer and something hanging stealthily in the air penetrated every part of her body, driving her crazy with need while rendering her helpless to react as he pulled her to her feet. Her eyes could barely stay open, but she didn't need to see. The only sense she needed was the sense of touch; to feel his hands caressing her body.

She felt him lift her up and tried to move her legs but they seemed so heavy. He pressed her up against the wall and she felt the roughness of the paintwork through her jumper. For a moment his hands left her skin and she stumbled a little, opening her eyes to find out where he had gone. Her vision was blurred and fuzzy as she caught sight of him unfastening his trousers and kicking them away, while his underwear joined them on the ground a moment later. He was already hard and desperate for release. He'd been stiffening from the moment she took his invitation to 'talk' and now he was finally about to get what he needed.

Pressing her shoulders against the wall, he took no time in forcing himself in; hard and rough, just the way he liked it, the way _she_ needed it to take away the frustration of all those months, those years of nothing; of never being touched, never being needed. He heard her gasp and groan as the hard wall behind her rubbed against her skin while his thrusting hit her in all the right places. His eyes closed as he moved harder and faster, the feeling of one leg wrapped around him driving him on.

He grunted as he pushed in and pulled back out, his motion made more difficult by the position he'd chosen, but this was how he wanted it. This was how he'd pictured it since the day he saw her laying in her hospital bed with that damn bullet in her guts.

One hand moved over the bullet wound while he held her shoulder firmly with the other. He knew if it hadn't been for that shot then he would never have met her; would never have had the good fortune to visit Fenchurch East and see her beautiful face, to watch her body move so gracefully as she walked through a world of Gene's creation, as she spread a charm and allure that he'd never encountered before.

He heard her cry out a little with the release of two long years of pent-up need and desire, the release of all the times she'd longed for someone to take her like this. He felt a broad grin spread across his face as he thought about Hunt missing out on this. He knew he could have had her any time, any place but he didn't take that opportunity. He didn't take _her_ and now he'd missed the chance.

_Keats 1; Hunt 0._

That was the thought that sent him tipping over the edge, his climax causing him to groan and to grasp her shoulder even tighter, his fingers crushing her through the material of her sweater and stinging her delicate skin. With that one last thrust that caused her to cry out through something that could have been pleasure or pain he felt himself flushing from head to toe with heat and exploded inside her.

Satisfied, sated, triumphant. He slipped from her body and breathed deeply as he watched her slide to the ground, her body exhausted and helpless. There was more to her drained and helpless form than the afterglow of passion, but he didn't need to dwell on that.

He glanced back at her; her head lolling as she leaned breathlessly against the wall while he wiped himself off on his underwear and pulled his trousers back on. His whole body was shaking from that climax. It took him by surprise. Wiping the remains of his load from his hands, he threw his underwear to the floor.

"I think you'd better rest, Alex," he said quietly, "you look shagged out." He gave a laugh and knelt beside her, her head too tired to move and her eyes too heavy to open. In a move that surprised him as much as it did her, he leaned forward and gently kissed her on the forehead, then caught himself and stood up abruptly. He straightened his tie and took his coat from the back of the chair then moved slowly to the door. "Don't sleep for too long," he advised, "the cleaners will be round in a minute. You might want to clean up that wet patch on the ground as well. They don't like dealing with spillages."

He gave a gentle laugh, then the last thing Alex remembered was the sound of the door opening and closing again.

When she awoke an hour later the only remains of the act were her discarded clothes and the sticky pool on the floor. The sound of the cleaners coming closer shook her awake, the thick mist in the air had dissipated and her mind was her own once again. Feeling shaken by the events, she pulled her dress back on, pocketed her underwear and fled as fast as her shaking legs would allow her. A long and fevered night later, she had all but blocked out that night and their one illicit, explosive encounter. Like waking from a hypnotic trance every moment was buried, gone, forgotten

Until now.

~xXx~

The scream that came from Alex's lips was blood-curdling. Her throat stung with the strength of her cry as her whole body rose from the couch in one fast movement, every inch of her covered with a cold sweat and shakes that just wouldn't stop. Her cry rang out again and again, loud sobs interspersing her screams and wracking her body with jerking movements she couldn't control.

She felt a pair of arms wrap around her and she tried to fight them away, so deeply had her nightmare affected her that she couldn't stand the thought of another person touching her in any way.

"_It's me,"_ she heard Robin's voice cry, "_Alex, it's me, it's OK."_

Finally she looked at him, her face as white as snow and her eyes wide and terrified.

"Robin," she cried, "Oh God, he…" She couldn't force the words out, as much as she tried. They caught in her throat and turned her stomach.

"What?" Robin asked, scared. He looked at her seriously. "What happened, Alex?" he felt his own heart starting to thump again as fear took over. "What did you remember? Can you tell me?"

She swallowed so hard, desperate to force the words out and release the power that the secret had over her but they were so, _so_ hard to speak of. She sobbed again and clung to Robin for dear life.

"Keats," she whispered, "he… he made me…"

Robin's mind began to fill in the blanks, but his own dark experiences with the man gave him a darker view than Alex's experience had been.

"Oh god, Alex, no," he felt his heart plummet, but Alex hadn't finished her sentence yet.

"He made me… he made me _want_ him," she whispered, her heart torn right down the middle and ground down into dust. Her anguish at the memory and her recollection of the way things happened had brought to her a level of devastation that she never thought possible. "Oh God, Robin, I… I wanted him… he _made_ me want him… he looked at me and… and the air was heavy and I…" she closed her eyes and choked on the agony inside her, "I couldn't say no… and I didn't _want_ to…" she gasped for breath. "The air… there was something in the air… Oh my God Robin, what have I done?"

All Robin could do was to hold her while she cried. He let her sob against his shoulder for as long as she needed to, for twenty long, terrible minutes until her mind and body were drained of strength and she tumbled into another spell of sleep. But this time her sleep was clear; untroubled. The devil had been released from his cage in her mind; he couldn't trouble her any longer.

As Robin finally managed to slip out from his spot beside her and laid her out on the couch, he stood back and stared at her pale face. He'd rarely seen anyone look so lost, so empty, so devastated inside. In fact, he'd only ever seen one person look that way and that was Simon in the aftermath of his accident. This was bringing back a lot of memories he would rather forget.

He tiptoed from the room to let her sleep on as long as she needed to. When she woke again there would be difficult conversations ahead that would push both of them mentally and emotionally but until then he would let her sleep. She needed all the rest that she could get, and - after all she'd been through – every peaceful moment was well deserved.


	29. Chapter 14, 1995: Affannato

**A/N: The second of 2 chapters today. The rating changed to M from the previous chapter.**

**Chapter Fourteen: 1995**

Alex brushed her blonde-streaked hair, staring at herself in the mirror. She pulled it back tightly and secured it with a band before winding it into a bun and pinned it up behind her. She pulled a little of the fringe down to cover her wound, then applied a very small amount of make-up. Finally, she pulled on a smart skirt and blouse she'd found tucked away in the back of the wardrobe. It was a little tight and she felt sure her chest was going to burst a button but at least she looked serious and smart.

She meant business and needed to look the part.

Setting her face resolutely she left her flat and caught a taxi to take her to Fenchurch East. The journey filled her with nerves. Going to your alleged place of work with no memory of the building or any of the people in it was one of the more surreal things she had ever experienced, but she knew it had to be done. She was trapped in a world of her mind's creation and the only way to find her way home was to focus, concentrate and become stronger. She had to cut distractions out of her life, and that included potential suitors that her brain had created and their unwanted middle of the night interruptions.

As she arrived at Fenchurch East she received a variety of strange looks – some from people who couldn't believe she was back at work already, some who were confused by her radical, business-like makeover ad others who couldn't understand why DCI Alex Drake, who'd been with the station for 15 years, was asking her way to CID and the Superintendent's office. Finally she managed to muddle her way through in a combination of guesswork, sign reading and bluffing, and arrived outside his door. Pulling her strength and courage together, she took a deep breath and then knocked.

X

Superintendent Fletcher wasn't like many of the men who had taken that post in the past. He'd been in the job for about a year and so far all had gone smoothly. Gene liked him because the man left him more or less to his own devices.

He'd been a _Gene_ in his own right once. He'd given up all of that when he grew tired and restless. He wasn't like Gene; to him it was just a job, not a purpose. He paid his dues, put in his years and when he grew tired of the endless circle of souls in and out he put in for a transfer and took the Superintendent job at Fenchurch East.

He knew Gene had been offered the post and turned it down. He couldn't understand that. It wasn't until he met the man and his team that he really got it. He could see that Gene had something he could never have aspired to. So did Alex. They had passion for this world. They had a true sense of motivation. He was happy to take a backseat and let them run CID more or less as they saw fit; Alex's division coming both under the CID remit while standing as independently as it had to in order to allow her to do her own job.

He liked Alex. He saw her as a strong woman who has both a heart of gold and a stomach of steel. She was tough, strong and determined but had a caring side that he was glad to see alongside Gene's harsh and no-nonsense approach. They worked well together – he could see that – and was happy to leave them to it.

"Come in," he said, glancing up for the paperwork he was reviewing I time to see a very different Alex step into the room. "DCI Drake! I wasn't expecting you to return for a good couple of weeks. We were all _so_ glad to hear how well you are recovering."

"I want to make a complaint against DCI Gene Hunt," Alex said quickly, cutting him off in his prime.

The Superintendent froze.

"Pardon?"

"I want to make a complaint of trespass and sexual harassment," Alex said firmly.

The Super put down his pen and looked at her incredulously.

"You wish to make a complaint of trespass and sexual harassment," he repeated, "against your own fiancé?"

"Ohhh, no, no, no," Alex sighed, "he's not my fiancé. I've just been put into this situation as part of this riddle to solve so I can get home."

Fletcher scratched his head.

"_Home_ sounds like a very good idea," he said, "it sounds to me like you need to rest some more. You've been through a severe head injury and massive trauma. You're getting mixed up."

"No, that man is nothing to do with me," Alex said firmly, "I want to see you bringing the proper procedures into place here."

Fletcher took a deep breath and looked at her seriously.

"I can't uphold a complaint for sexual harassment against the man you are going to marry," he said, "it would be laughed out of the courts."

"I did not agree to marry that man!"

"We were all happy to hear of you finally making an honest man of DCI Hunt," the Super told her, "we started having a whip-round for an engagement present, then after your shooting we changed the whip-round for the funeral-I mean, err, _get well soon_ present instead," he blushed, trying to cover his mistake after they had been so sure she would never be able to recover from that gunshot.

"I have no memory of agreeing to such a thing."

"You're still wearing your engagement ring," Fletcher pointed out.

Alex looked down with a frown.

"Shit," she whispered, trying to remove it, but her fingers were a little swollen and she couldn't get it to budge. "Damn."

Fletcher looked at her in concern. He certainly didn't know who this woman was but she wasn't the Alex Drake he knew.

"Listen, Alex," he began sensitively, "you are due for assessment and a possible return to work two weeks from tomorrow. I think you will need some additional time off…"

"No…"

"…and quite possibly some psychiatric treatment."

"_No!"_

"A gunshot to the head… there have to be all manner of complications arising from this," he said, "memory loss for example…"

"I do _not_ have memory loss!" cried Alex.

"…But this kind of outburst isn't doing you or anyone any good, and I do not want you to damage your excellent reputation."

"I don't have memory loss," Alex said again, "I am in a deep comatose state after receiving a gunshot wound to the head and I need to fight my way out to get home!"

"Getting home is something I can help with," he said, lifting the receiver again., "I'll call a taxi to take you home and let DCI Hunt know that you are unwell."

"I am _fine!"_ Alex thumped her fist on his desk, "I just want to get back to work, get my brain into action, get DCI Hunt off my back and get home!"

Fletcher sighed. He really didn't want to do this but he didn't seem to have any choice.

"Alex," he began quietly, "I'm going to ask security to escort you from the building now. I will call your doctors and arrange a full psychiatric assessment as soon as possible for you. Hopefully they will give you the care that you need to overcome this amnesia you are going through and you will be back with us in a few months' time. But until then I'm afraid if you enter these premises we will have to remove you, for your own safety as much as ours."

Alex's mouth opened wide, her heart thumping in horror.

"N-_no!_ You can't do that," she cried, "I need to come back. I need to be at work. I need it to help me get strong. I have to keep my brain working, to help me solve this puzzle. I need to work my way through this state… to get home… back to my daughter."

Fletcher felt a real sense of sadness to see one of the strongest detectives he'd ever met in this state. How could the hospital have released her while she was in this state?

"I'm sorry," he said quietly. He pressed a couple of buttons on his phone. "Security? Could someone please help DCI Drake off the premises? She's not feeling very well."

"Don't bother, I'm leaving," Alex snapped, slamming her fist on the desk one last time and turning around.

Fletcher watched her close the door behind her and sighed. He couldn't believe how severely the bullet had changed her and he truly hoped she would get the help she needed. Without her he wasn't sure how Fenchurch East would cope.

~xXx~

"_Alright! Alright, I'm leaving!"_

The security guard who had apprehended Alex on the stairs escorted her firmly out of the doors and led her onto the street.

"I'm sorry, Ma'am," he said a little apologetically, "orders are orders."

Alex smoothed down her clothes, scowled at the guard and started to march away. As she walked, with every step she took her heart sank a little further inside of her chest and her stomach churned a little more angrily. Her pace began to slow down as the full enormity of her situation began to dawn on her.

She was alone.

Completely, utterly, wholly alone.

A tear began to appear in the corner of her eye. This was all wrong. How was she so deeply at the mercy of her own subconscious? How could she ever fight her way home when everything was working so hard against her? She missed her daughter so much that every breath she took without her hurt. It crushed her chest to think of Molly, just as lonely as Alex was. She needed to get home and had to fight every step of the way, but how was she ever going to fight when no one would give her a chance to claw her way back to supremacy inside her own head?

She slowed down until she came to a halt. Suddenly she found the pavement rising up to greet her. It took her a few moments to realise that she was the one sinking to the ground. She landed heavily on the pavement as her legs gave way underneath her and a tear fell from her eye. It rolled slowly down her cheek as she stared at the ground, desperately hoping that an answer would come forth from somewhere. She felt as though all her options were fading fast.

She couldn't go home. She was scared of Gene coming back. She couldn't go to work – the super had made it clear that he thought she needed help and had no intention of allowing her back until she sought it. She knew no one in this strange place, this strange year, this strange world – she had no one, nothing, nowhere to go.

As she sat there, the world seemed to fade away around here. The traffic moving by barely made a dent in her moment of stillness. The sound of people walking past didn't reach her. She stared at nothing, letting no thoughts fill her mind. Silence. Sadness. Emptiness.

Finally a pair of shoes brought her out of her sad, silent lament as they stepped directly in front of her. They were black. Shiny. She could see her reflection within them. Her eyes travelled up a long pair of legs. Smart, grey trousers and a long trench coat came into view, followed by a clean, crisp shirt; a straight, dark tie and finally the face of a man, bearing a curious expression. His hair fell into a perfect set of dark waves while deep eyes were sheltered a little by a pair of horn-rimmed spectacles. He took off his glasses and looked at her a little more intently.

"Alex?" he asked.

Alex stared up at him. She knew that she must look a sight, with tears rolling down her cheeks and her wound visible beneath the blonde highlights she wished would disappear. She took a deep breath and tried to keep calm.

"Am I supposed to know you?" she asked finally.

"I don't know," the man seemed to hesitate, "Do you know me?"

Alex gave a shrug. He almost seemed familiar.

"You certainly seem to know _me,"_ she said.

The man hesitated for a moment then held out his hand.

"Jim Keats," he said, "Head of CID, Fenchurch West."

Alex hesitated for a moment, then finally reached out her hand to shake on his acquaintance. Her palm met his and a strange feeling washed over her.

"Alex Drake," she said quietly, "but… you seem to already know that?"

Keats bent down to her level and stared intently into her eyes., He had a smile that bore into her mind, putting her more at ease than anyone or anything had since the moment she awoke.

"We met a long time ago," Keats told her.

Alex breathed in deeply.

"You were in the hospital," she said quietly.

Keats hesitated for a second, then nodded.

"I thought it was you," he said, "I passed your room, but you didn't seem to recognise me."

Alex felt her heart sinking again.

"I seem to be having a few…_ issues_ with my memory," she explained, a little bitterly.

"Oh dear," Keats didn't sound incredibly sympathetic, "anything I can help with?"

"Not unless you have a time machine hanging around," Alex mumbled.

"Uh, sorry," Keats spread his palms, "I'm a detective, not a scientist."

"Or a ticket to some hot, tropical place, far away from here," Alex said, trying to broaden her horizons, "or a big house, or a job far away from the prehistoric regime of Fenchurch East."

There was a spark of interest in Keats's eye. Something lit up inside of him. He gave a strange little laugh and positively beamed.

"Uh, well," he began, "I might be able to help you on that last one."

Alex looked at him, for the first time showing a little hope on her face.

"In all seriousness?" she asked.

Keats nodded.

"I'm looking for a DCI to fill a certain role," he began, "I did have someone lined up for it but, err… he couldn't take the heat," He gave a small laugh and ran a hand through his hair. "Look, let's not do this on the street. Come with me now. I'll give you the tour, tell you about the role, you can make sure I'm not some crazy idiot recruiting strangers in the wild and maybe we'll both get something out of this. What do you think?"

Alex hesitated. A thousand warnings about not going off with strange men rang through her mind but she decided to ignore them. After all, this was a world of her own creation; her head had put together a variety of strange scenarios and unpleasant events. Up until now she had done nothing but suffer – one knock after another. Perhaps, she decided, her subconscious had to knock her right down to the ground in order to rebuild her strength a new.

She carried on staring at the stranger for a few moments. Then, finally, she slowly nodded.

"OK," she said quietly.

A broad smile spread across Keats's face and he got to his feet, extending an arm to help her up from her position on the pavement.

"Excellent," he beamed, "good decision. I'm sure you'll find everything to your liking." He gave a nod. "I'm looking forward to working with you, Alex."

In return, Alex gave a nervous flicker of a smile. Torn between anticipation and a sense of anxiety, she knew that she might be playing with fire but at the loss of any other avenue this was the best chance she had of rebuilding herself enough to seek a path home.

As she allowed him to pull her to her feet and dusted herself down she couldn't help but feel that she had turned a corner in her experience of 1995. Whether that corner would lead to the good or the bad she didn't yet know but at least things were moving now. She just hoped she had made the right choice.


	30. Chapter 15, 2011: Adagio

_**A/N: 2 chapters again today, then back to single chapters from tomorrow!**_

**Chapter Fifteen: 2011**

Alex gave an awkward smile as she stepped out of the lounge and walked slowly to the kitchen where Robin was sitting at the table. He looked up with a warm smile when he saw her.

"Hey," He said quietly, "How are you feeling?"

Alex sank into the chair opposite him very slowly indeed. She looked pale and drawn, Simon's old shirt hanging around her body like rags on a scarecrow. Her smile was crooked and forced.

"When I was fifteen," she began quietly, "I went to a disco at school and spent the first three quarters of the time with my skirt tucked into the back of my knickers." She noticed a blank look on Robin's face. "That," she continued, "was about half as embarrassing as the state you found me in when you came back this morning." She looked down and blushed. "I'm sorry. I don't know what possessed me. The drink and the junk food." Her stomach gave a long, painful groan at the memory, causing her blushing cheeks to darken still. "Sorry," she whispered, "Cabbage soup again."

"How's your head?" Robin asked.

"About as painful as the gunshot," she said, closing one eye as her growing hangover started to throb harder. She noticed a paper bag sitting on the table. "What's that?"

Robin opened up the bag and reached inside. He pulled items from within one at a time and lined them up along the table.

"Ibuprofen," he began, "Alka-Seltzer, milk of magnesia, cool strips for your head, and something that's supposed to get rid of wind but look a bit like extra strong mints to me."

Alex looked down and couldn't help letting a laugh escape.

"I can see which role you played in your relationship," she said quietly, "quite the mother hen."

"It gets worse," smiled Robin, "there's a lasagne in the oven."

Alex inhaled deeply and let her breath out slowly.

"I've heard good things about your cooking," she told him.

"Simon only says those things to get out of doing any of the cooking himself," Robin smiled, then caught himself and flinched. "_Said,"_ he corrected, "_said _those things."

A sudden sadness fell over them both for a moment which brought with it a few seconds of silence. Eventually Alex glanced around.

"How long have I been asleep?" she asked quietly.

Robin checked the clock on the oven

"It's almost five now," he said.

Alex put her head in her hands and sighed deeply.

"Shit," she whispered, "I've been out all day."

"You obviously needed it," Robin said quietly. His expression became serious and he chewed nervously on his lip. "Your nightmare," he said quietly. Just the mention of it brought an overcast appearance to Alex's face. "Are you ready to talk about it?"

Alex took in a long, deep breath.

"No," she said quietly. She gave a smile that was brief and very false. "I need time."

Robin nodded gravely.

"Of course," he said.

Alex had been shaken beyond measure by her memories and couldn't begin to arrange them into any formation that didn't make her hate herself with every fibre of her body. She wasn't ready to address them yet. She knew she would have to, and soon, but she needed a little time. She reached toward the vast array of medication on the table and asked,

"Could I have a glass of water please?"

"Sure," Robin stood up and walked to the cupboard. As he fetched one and began to fill it from the tap he began to feel somewhat self-conscious. For the first time he realised quite how little he and Alex knew about each other. They knew most of their collective knowledge through Simon, one way and the other, but they'd spent very little time in each other's company. Alex's desperate situation had glossed over that fact, but suddenly he came to realise how little he actually knew about her.

She took the glass gratefully and began to load up on ibuprofen to tackle the banging inside her brain. She looked at the cool strips and considered using one but thought she would look like a bit of a twit with one of those stuck across her forehead so decided against them for now. She picked up the milk of magnesia and began to shake the bottle.

"Can we talk about something please?" she asked a little desperately.

"Uh… yeah," Robin frowned, "sure. What?"

"Anything," she said, pulling off the cap, "everything. Just… take my mind off it all? Just for a little while? Please?"

Robin felt a deep sinking feeling in his chest. He knew what the _'it'_ was that Alex spoke of. _'It'_ was a man with glasses and a tendency to crop up where he wasn't wanted.

"Of course," he hesitated. His mind went blank. He couldn't think of a topic. "I'm sorry," he sighed, rubbing his forehead, "you've put me on the spot."

Alex took a capful of the foul tasting chalky liquid and pulled a face, spluttering and swearing.

"Well, let's start by discussing how the pharmaceutical industry has made a new enemy today."

She poured another capful and swallowed it quickly.

"Alex, wait!" Robin tried to stop her but it was too late. "Didn't you read the instructions?" she looked at him a little blankly. "You were only supposed to take one. That's the laxative dose."

Alex hesitated.

"_Shit,"_ she cursed. Robin tried hard not to snicker and make the obvious joke, but she caught sight of his expression as he tried to mask his amusement and closed her eyes with a tired smile. "Oh ha ha_, very_ funny."

Robin relaxed just a little and let a light laugh out.

"I'm sorry," he said quietly, "it's just so obvious."

Despite everything, Alex gave a gentle laugh too. It was the first moment of genuine light-heartedness he'd seen on her since she'd arrived at his door the night before and the relief of seeing a glimmer of the Alex he met in 1995 was immense.

"Oh _god,"_ Alex ran a hand through her hair, forgetting for a moment about her new fringe, "well, at least there's a fully functioning toilet here and I wasn't planning on going anywhere tonight."

Her joke had brought their attention right back to her situation and their spirits began to sink again. Robin looked down and gave a deep sigh.

"Alex," he said quietly, "I'm so sorry. For everything you're going through."

Alex looked away again. This was another subject she wasn't ready to think about yet. Get some time between her and the last couple of days, a proper meal into her and some clarity to her head and _then_ she could face it. For now, she needed to keep her mind away from it, just for an hour or two. She needed that time to recuperate and gather her mental strength.

"Please, Robin," she said quietly, "talk to me." She thought fast, "Tell me about you and Simon. How did you meet?"

Robin's face took on a completely different expression and Alex wasn't sure if she should have taken that avenue of conversation. He looked sad, nostalgic and very, very much in love all at once. He gave a distant smile and choked in a breath from a sob that was always on the edge of his mind when he thought about Simon.

"I don't know what there is to say," He said quietly, "It was one of those things. A chance meeting."

"Where did it happen?"

"A nightclub," Robin said quietly. His eyes took on a glazed, faraway look as his mind travelled right back to that moment, "you'll like this – it was eighties night, ironically."

"It was?"

Robin nodded.

"Simon was in his first year at university… I was _pretending_ I was in my first year at university… couple of years between us. Just got my fake ID and took it for a test run. I was dressed as Boy George and he was Adam Ant. Turned out we shared the same favourite song and when it came on we were just… drawn together."

"_Absolute Beginners_?" Alex asked.

Robin looked at her in surprise.

"How did you know?"

"I remember… in the Karaoke bar…" she explained.

Robin felt himself choking up a little. His few days in 1995 had been more than surreal. Now they felt like something of a very strange dream, but Alex presence helped him to hold onto them as something solid. _Real._

"We'd see each other at the club every now and then," he continued, "we were just friends, but close friends. I eventually started university for real and Simon was in his last year. We started hanging out all the time… discovered we were as geeky as each other. Had so much in common, it was unreal. After Simon left, we just kind of lost touch for a bit. It wasn't something we could help – he joined the force, got busy, I was busy with my exams."

"But you met again," Alex said with a smile. It was a statement rather than a question, something that helped to restore her faith in fate.

Robin nodded.

"It was so strange," he said, his voice wavering slightly, "we met again the day I got accepted into the Canine Division training programme. I was walking through the car park and there he was. He'd just been promoted to DS and we went out to celebrate that night." Alex saw a blush spreading across Robin's cheeks.

"And?" she asked.

The smile on Robin's face said it all.

"Our friendship took a different turn," he said quietly.

Alex gave a slow nod and smiled back.

"Falling in love with a friend," she whispered. It was a sentiment she identified with.

Robin looked at her.

"It was funny, but our lives always seemed to make leaps at similar times," he said, "a week after Simon got promoted to DI I was given a permanent post as sergeant in the canine division. The day after Simon made DCI, I was appointed Inspector in charge of the dog unit. He was always a step ahead of me." He gave an ironic smile, "even in terms of visiting your world."

Alex felt herself sighing involuntarily. The situation between herself and Gene had so many parallels, separated by time and reality. She understood how he felt.

"Simon was… very different when you were around," she said, "the first time I met him he was scared. Lost."

"We kind of needed each other," Robin admitted. "We balanced each other out. A bit like you and Gene, I suppose. We had our ups and downs, I'm not denying that, but…" he sighed. "We were just… right. I think Simon found it harder than I did when we were first together. I never really had the same difficulty with my sexuality that he faced. I mean, I had some teasing… who wouldn't? But it wasn't like the horrible crap he got from the kids at his school."

Alex developed a pained expression.

"I remember him telling me about it," she whispered.

"He went through a lot," he said, "I think he knew from an early age. He was a dead six on the Kinsey scale."

Alex sipped some of her water as the horrible chalky liquid threatened to repeat on her.

"And what about you?"

"Me? I'm probably a five point nine," laughed Robin, "I had a strange, confusing _thing_ about Gillian Anderson for a while in the X-Files but…" he shrugged.

"Don't worry, we've all been there," Alex slipped, before she blushed and drank a lot of water.

Robin decided to let that one go.

"Nah, it was only ever Simon for me," he said with a sigh. "I don't think there's ever going to be anyone else."

"Simon wouldn't want you to be lonely," Alex told him.

"I know," Robin sighed, "I actually _know,_ for certain – I got a letter." He bit his lip and hesitated. He wasn't sure he was ready to share this, but is he couldn't tell Alex who else was going to understand? "There's someone from your time. A woman. Simon asked her to memorise a letter and she brought it to me on New Year 's Eve." He saw Alex's eyes widen in surprise. She couldn't have known about it. "He says he wants me to find someone one day… doesn't want me to be lonely." He shook his head. "I don't think I can do that."

"Robin, don't count out the possibility," Alex advised, "you never know what may happen in the future."

Robin looked at her seriously.

"It's not the same for me though, is it?" he asked, "if someone's partner dies then they just think they're gone forever… they can eventually move on and maybe be happy again. But I know where Simon is. One day, I hope, I can be with him again. Imagine if I met someone else and ended up arriving back in Gene's world with another man in tow? How would Simon feel? Or what if I fall off a giraffe next week and show up to find Simon's moved on? It's so, _so_ complicated." He put his head in his hands. "I mean, what should I do? What would _you _do?"

Alex stared at him. She had no idea. No idea at all.

"Robin," she said quietly, "I don't know. I have no idea what I would do if I were you and I don't envy you for facing this situation at all. But I do know that you and Simon were…_ are_… supposed to be together. Somehow. And whatever else happens, that's how you will be again one day. You've got to trust in that."

"I've lost my trust in most things," Robin admitted quietly.

Alex reached out and laid her hand over his.

"Then trust my instincts," she said, "You'll be together again."

Robin glanced up at her. He wanted to ask her so many things, there was so much he wanted to say, but the timer on the oven interrupted the moment with a rude beeping and he closed his mouth abruptly. He got to his feet and turned to the meal he'd been preparing.

"Saved by the bell," he mumbled, fishing some oven gloves out of the drawer. He glanced back at her. "Would you like parmesan?"

"I'd like _anything_ that's not cabbage soup," Alex replied honestly.

Robin laughed and set about serving up some food, never once forgetting whose kitchen he was in. Thoughts of a hundred meals he'd prepared there for Simon came back to him and the reality of whose home he was standing in hit him hard like a pain in the chest. He wished, not for the first time, that Simon was there beside him right there and then. He missed Simon's logic and strength. Those were two qualities he needed to help Alex out of her dreadful situation.

Just like Alex and Gene they balanced each other out, and when they weren't together neither side functioned as well as it should. He just hoped enough of Simon had rubbed off on him over the years to help them through this battle.


	31. Chapter 15, 1995: Strepitoso

_**A/N – The second of today's double dose, aaaaaand now I'm all caught up so back to a chapter a day! But if I get ahead again there might be double doses in a week or so!**_

**Chapter Fifteen: 1995**

He was running; chasing someone. Simon knew that much for certain. They were fast, but he wasn't going to let them get away. His speed increased, he began to catch up now. He felt sure the man was familiar but in the chase he was too focused on running than on trying to identify him. But he reeked of evil. Pure, total, utter evil. He was almost within his grasp, until – at the very last moment – the man turned around and fired a shot at his head. The dream went black, save for one strange, momentary glimpse of the inside of a car and the feeling of his hands on the steering wheel. He thought for all the world that Robin was sitting beside him, but the moment could have only lasted for a second or less before a big jolt knocked him awake.

He sat bolt upright and gasped with shock, partly at being woken so suddenly and partly at discovering that he'd fallen asleep at the kitchen table in the first place. He rubbed his eyes and his forehead as he tried to make some semblance of sense out of what was going on. He saw Gene seated opposite him and realised the jolt had been his arrival at the table, shaking Simon awake.

"_Shit,"_ he breathed, trying to focus and rub the sleep from his eyes. He knew he'd only had a little sleep the night before but falling asleep in the middle of the day wasn't like him. "What time is it?"

Gene looked at the clock on the wall. His own focusing skills weren't at their peak right then but he could make out just about enough to see the time.

"About five," he mumbled.

Simon exhaled and rubbed his eyes again.

"Shit," he cursed for a second time, "I must have dosed off."

"You reckon, do you?" Gene mocked, "it was yer bloody snoring that woke me up." Simon noticed he looked a little sheepish. "I cleaned yer bin out."

Simon pulled a face involuntarily.

"Thanks," he said. He sat up a little straighter and tried to smooth out his crumpled shirt, although compared to the state of Gene he looked positively crisp and fresh. "How are you feeling?"

Gene grunted.

"Aside from the buzz saw in me head? Fine and dandy," he said. "Listen, Simon, do you, uh, mind if we keep this whole incident between ourselves?"

Simon closed his eyes momentarily.

"Sure," he said, "I just need a time machine to stop myself phoning Kim and to intercept you before you went to CID and passed out in front of Terry and Bammo."

Gene flinched and frowned.

"That would explain the post-it notes," he said.

Simon slowly got to his feet, his limbs feeling heavy and slow.

"Do you want something to eat?" he asked.

"The only thing sloshing more than me brain is me guts," said Gene.

"Shame," sighed Simon, "I was going to order a pizza."

Gene hesitated.

"We can negotiate on that," he said.

Simon gave a little smile as he reached for the phone and called for a couple of pizzas. He wished that Robin was there, and not for the first time that day. He was the cook amongst them. Without him Simon would probably have spent the last few years_ living_ on pizzas and other assorted takeaway treats.

As he finished calling his order and hung up the phone he was aware of Gene looking a little sheepish again.

"Shoebury," he began, "about this morning."

Simon hesitated. He sank back into his chair.

"Yes?" he said eventually.

Gene grunted again.

"Sorry," he said awkwardly.

Simon drew in a deep breath.

"Do you want to talk about it?" he asked, "about what happened with Alex?"

Gene shook his head, sighing as he exhaled.

"Not until my head stops spinning," he said.

"Gene –"

"Not ready yet," Gene interrupted him, "Give me a chance. Pizza, hair of the dog and then I'll be ready."

Simon pulled a face.

"Not sure that's a very good idea," he said.

"Neither was your jumper," Gene pointed out.

Simon looked at him a little crossly. He was not going to spend the next twenty minutes being insulted as he waited for the pizzas to arrive. He ran his fingers through his hair and stared at a spot on the ceiling, just above Gene.

"So are we going to sit here like a couple of silent lemons for the next however long until the pizzas get here then?"

"Not everything has to be deep and meaningful, Shoebury," Gene mumbled, "can't you try talking about something that only needs a few brain cells for once?" He noticed Simon opening his mouth and cut him off before he spoke, "something that doesn't involve any of the cast members of bloody Red Dwarf."

Simon shut his mouth abruptly. He wracked his brain but couldn't seem to pull anything out from it. He wasn't very good at small talk if he was honest. He seemed to cope better with the deep and meaningful than with the light-hearted and easy. He sighed.

"What do you want to talk about then?" he asked.

"Anything," shrugged Gene, "ask me a question."

"Like?"

"Well I don't know! _Anything._ Ask me what colour me underpants are. Ask me if I enjoyed the last book I read."

"Alright," Simon sighed, "did you enjoy the last book you read?"

Gene hesitated nervously.

"Uh, yes, "he said eventually, "I did, as it 'appens."

Simon waited for him to continue. When silence fell, he prompted,

"What was it about?"

Gene seemed to grow a little red.

"It was a critical analysis of the entertainment value of television as a visual medium and its role within the household during the festive period," he said.

Simon looked at him incredulously.

"You mean you read the Christmas edition of the TV guide?" he asked.

Gene looked a little angry.

"Well it was a stupid bloody question!" he cried, "When do I have time to read a bloody book?"

"It was _your question!"_ Simon reminded him.

"You should have thought of a better one!"

"Well _you_ think of a question then!" cried Simon, "if you're so good at it! Ask me something!"

"OK," said Gene. He paused. His mind went over many possibilities, most of which would probably earn him a night on the street. Finally he had an epiphany, "Alright," he said, "So, what's it like being a bender?"

"_Gene!"_ Simon's mouth fell open in horror. He felt himself flush red across his cheeks and he almost toppled off his chair in shock.

"What?" Gene thought he'd put it reasonably politely.

Simon shook his head, his mouth a little open in disbelief.

"It's _lovely,_ Gene," he said sarcastically, "it's one long laugh-riot."

"You must get to hear all the best homo jokes though?" Gene tried.

Simon's mouth dropped open a little wider.

"Yes – and I hear most of them from _you!"_ he cried.

Gene put his hand to his head, which was really starting to throb.

"Well _you_ think of another one then," he demanded.

"Alright," Simon said determinedly. He thought for a moment. He had to come up with something better than that. "Alright, here's one – why were you singing the theme tune to _Frasier_ in your sleep earlier?"

Gene scowled.

"Gene Hunt does not sing in his sleep," he stated clearly for the record.

"Simon Shoebury does not have problems with his hearing," Simon countered.

"If you still want to have a job in the morning then you will forget you ever heard that," Gene mumbled.

Simon pulled a face.

"_Frasier has left the building,"_ he commented. He saw Gene on the verge of exploding and decided to change the subject, "alright, your turn again. Think of a question."

Gene was beginning to regret even starting this. He leaned back heavily in the chair and said,

"Alright. Got an important one."

"Yeah?"

"Apart from yer bin," he began, "did I do any other technicolour yawns this morning?"

Simon cringed.

"Your turn of phrase is _delightful,"_ he gagged, "but, no. I don't think so. Saved it up until I got you home."

"That's good to know," Gene said, a little relieved, "no harder apology to make than one on the vomit trail."

"Oh, _ugh!"_ Simon put his hand over his mouth. He was starting to have serious regrets about allowing Gene to stay, let alone converse. There was a little, blissful silence, then Gene eventually asked,

"Well?"

"Well what?"

"Your turn again."

"_Shit,"_ Simon sighed, "do I have to?"

"And try to avoid questioning me on me sleeping habits this time," he warned.

Simon exhaled loudly.

"Fine," he said. He gave a little shrug, "so… what do you want for Christmas?"

"Oh come on, Shoebury, that's a bit lame!" Gene mocked, "you might as well ask me if I believe in Father Christmas!"

"I told you I wasn't very good at this!" cried Simon.

"You're not even trying!"

Simon sighed. He put his hand to his head.

"Alright, alright," he said, "OK. I've got one." He paused. "Who's Sam?"

The look on Gene's face changed completely as soon as the question left Simon's mouth. His expression grew pained and distant for a moment.

"Sam," he repeated quietly. He looked at Simon. "How do you know about Sam?"

"You were talking about him when you were wasted," Simon explained.

Gene looked down. He gave a slow nod and ran his tongue along the inside of his cheek.

"Don't really want to go there to be honest," he said.

"You seemed to want to when you'd consumed a bottle of scotch," said Simon.

"Yeah, well, when I've consumed a bottle of scotch I'm happy to give a critical analysis of the career of the Chuckle Brothers," said Gene, "doesn't mean I'm going to do it when I'm stone cold sober."

Simon sat up a little straighter. Suddenly his interest was piqued.

"What's the matter? He asked, "Who is he?"

"_Was,"_ Gene corrected. He looked away and stopped talking, hoping Simon would get the hint and drop the subject but when he finally looked back Simon's eyes were still on him. He sighed and rubbed his thumping head. "Look, Sam was… Sam Tyler was Alex before _Alex_ was Alex," he tried to explain; "He was my DI in Manchester. There's always one of you lot turning up from two thousand and bollocks with your new-fangled ideas and crap."

Simon frowned.

"Glad to see I bring so much value to your team," he said a little crossly.

"Last time someone starting digging around about Sam I ended up with a ceiling full o' stars and Jimbo breathing down my neck," Gene explained, "you'll excuse me for wanting to avoid that subject."

"Did Sam go to the pub?" asked Simon.

Gene looked down and grunted.

"Yes," he said, "Sam went to the pub."

"Do you miss him?" Simon asked.

There was a beat in which Gene considered answering that, then in the next moment he shook his thumping head and decided to get away from the subject altogether.

"Look, what_ is_ this? _This is your Life?"_ he cried, "Gonna have a trail of people marching out from the Railway Arms to come and shake me hand?"

Simon sighed and rubbed his head.

"_Fine,"_ he said, "I'll drop it. Come on then – next question."

_Shit_, thought Gene, _my bloody turn again_. Why ever had he started this? He closed his eyes, "Alright," he said, a little edge to his voice, "You and Jimbo on the roof…"

Gene's words brought a look of horror to Simon's face.

"What?"

"What 'appened there?"

Simon stumbled backward in his chair a little, the question brining a wave of nausea to him.

"I thought you were going to drop it!" he cried, "You said yesterday you understood that he shouldn't have been able to get away."

"I still don't understand why you were sitting there letting him get you into a staring contest and fiddle with yer nipples."

"He did _not," _Simon cried angrily, jumping to his feet,_ "fiddle with my nipples!" _A red hue rose from his neck to cover the whole of his face in the darkest blush he'd ever known. He looked at Gene, as mortified and humiliated as he'd ever felt in his life. "Drop this, OK?"

"So it's alright to keep probing when_ I've_ 'ad enough of yer questions but it's different when Shoebury's going a bit red around the face?" Gene pulled him up on that point.

"There's a big difference!" Simon cried, pacing up and down with his hands flapping around like leaves in the wind, "Sam was a friend of yours, Keats is the bad penny that keeps haunting me and somehow – _somehow,"_ his voice raised, "got me in that stare for one moment and because it was caught on tape I'm going to get the third degree forever more!"

"It wasn't one moment though, was it?" Gene reminded him, "_How_ long were you up there?"

"Drop this," Simon turned around, put his hands to his head and breathed deeply.

"If you'd just tell me then maybe I can stop worrying about yer turning all _Fenchurch West_ on me and then I'll stop asking yer!" Gene barked.

"Gene, I'm not going to defect!" Simon cried, "It was this one, weird, emotional moment on the roof where he'd flipped from being a monster into a man and saved my life. I didn't know _what_ to do. Now, I have to live with that every day, knowing I let him get away and knowing you blame me for it. I hate that it happened, I hate that I can't stop thinking about it and most of all I hate that you watched every fucking moment of it on that bloody tape!"

Gene opened his mouth to respond but a knocking sounded at the door, followed by an unnecessary ring of the buzzer and a cry of; _"Pizza!"_

Simon let out his breath slowly and closed his eyes in something approaching relief.

"Saved by the bell," he mumbled.

"Too bleeding right," Gene added, his head in his hands.

Simon grabbed his wallet from the side and looked back at Gene as he marched to the door.

"Let's make a deal" he said crossly, "let's never try the small talk thing again."

"Done," Gene agreed.

As Simon walked to the door to take receipt of the pizzas he couldn't help wishing once again that Robin was there. He was always better at this kind of thing. Simon was better at dealing with the practical; give him a dilemma and a flip chart and he could solve it but trying to cope with a fraught and volatile Gene who'd just lost his Alex and look what happened - a conversation that started with '_did you enjoy the last book you read_?' had descended into chaos.

He shook his head and sighed as he paid the man and took their food back to the kitchen where Gene was waiting for pizza. This whole _having-house-guests-thing _was not good for his health, he decided.


	32. Chapter 16, 2011: Marcato

_**A/N - Just 1 chapter a day now - see if you can spot the homage to S1 ep1!**_

**Chapter Sixteen: 2011**

Dinner passed in near silence, except for the occasional munching noise, compliment on Robin's cooking or gaseous output that Alex wrongfully blamed on the cabbage soup. The silence as they ate gave them both time to reflect on their position, both as tenuous as each other's. Alex's safety depended on staying out of Evan's way while her future with Gene depended on some apparent impossibility. Returning home seemed unlikely and the thought of a life here without him filled her with a coldness that froze her heart. Robin's own safety now depended on much the same thing. His involvement with Alex's asylum put his job in serious jeopardy and his motivation to help her home was strong; born from his empathy for her situation.

Alex laid down her knife and fork, her plate cleared. Despite her junk food binge and unsettled stomach, a proper meal had been a desperately needed measure to put some flesh back on her bones and give her the energy and strength she needed to fight her way back to 1995.

"Robin, your talents are wasted in the force," she said, "You need to open a restaurant."

"Yeah, except I seem to work better with dogs than people," Robin commented, "I can't see a bunch of German Shepherd's lining up to take bowls of soup out to the tables"

Alex smiled at Robin's sense of humour. It put her at ease.

"Maybe the concept needs a rethink," she said.

Robin looked down, a little nervously. He knew deeper conversations were looming and wasn't sure how to broach them without upsetting Alex. He got to his feet and put the plates in the sink.

"Washing up was usually Simon's job," he said quietly, "now I _really_ miss him!"

Alex smiled again, but there was a sadness behind it.

"I'll take Simon's role and wash them up later," she said.

"If you really want to be Simon you'll have to swear a bit more," Robin pointed out. He picked up the remains of the lasagne, covered it with foil and walked to the fridge, "If you want some more later, help yourself," he said. He opened the fridge door and reeled back in horror. _"Ewww_, there's a six month old lemon in here!"

Alex pulled a face.

"What colour is it now?" she dared to ask.

"Well, not lemon yellow, that's for sure," Robin commented, gagging a little. He put the lasagne in the fridge and removed the lemon with a pair of tongs. "Yes, I'm aware of how cowardly this looks," he said before Alex could comment upon it, "Spiders, fine. Wasps, no problem. Heights? Piece of cake. But a bit of mouldy food and it's puke central." He dropped the offending lemon in the bin. "I think I need some of that milk of magnesia after seeing that thing," he gagged.

Lemon dealt with, more serious matters came to mind. They both knew it and neither wanted to admit it. Alex almost decided to start the washing up right away to delay the moment a little longer but that plan failed when she found there was no washing up liquid as Simon had left the cap off the bottle months and months ago and whatever remained had solidified. Finally Robin asked the question that he wished he didn't have to ask. He took a deep breath and steeled himself.

"Are you ready to talk about it yet?" he asked quietly. He watched Alex's face crumble and her eyes darken. She would never be 'ready', but she knew that she couldn't put it off forever. Not if she wanted to face her situation and find her way home. She nodded grimly.

"OK," she said quietly.

Robin nodded back. He hesitated for a moment. The kitchen had always been the setting for long conversations between himself and Simon, in both of their respective flats. He didn't have the heart to have one with somebody else in a space that was so personal to them.

"Let's do this in the lounge," he said quietly.

Both Alex and Robin felt a little as though they were being led to the gallows as they slowly walked to the lounge and sat on the couch. While she may have had Robin sitting right by her side, Alex couldn't have felt more alone. She looked down at the floor as she tried to pull her courage together and speak. Slowly she opened her mouth and with a shaking voice she said,

"Please don't judge me."

Robin shook his head.

"Of course I won't," he promised. He watched the colour fading from Alex's cheeks as she let her mind travel back to her nightmare. "What can you tell me, Alex?" he asked quietly.

Alex breathed deeply. Her soul ached to remember.

"I feel so guilty, Robin," she whispered, "and all this time… I had no memory of this…"

"Are you sure it happened?" Robin asked, "could it have just been a nightmare?"

Alex shook her head slowly.

"I can't say for sure," she whispered, "but until now they've all been flashbacks. It seems real… _so_ real… but it makes so little sense."

Robin chewed on his lip anxiously. He wasn't sure he wanted to hear it any more than Alex wanted to speak of it but he knew that anything she could tell him would help her route home.

"What happened?"

Alex breathed in and out, a sick feeling rising in her chest. She fought hard to keep it at bay as she contemplated her nightmare.

"There are some things you should know about Keats. About the past," she began. "He first arrived at Fenchurch East a long time ago," she whispered, "Gene had… he'd shot me by accident and I'd been comatose for three months." Involuntarily her hand strayed to her stomach where she'd lived with the bullet mark for so many years. There was nothing there now. "D and C were sent to investigate – and he arrived." She paused and looked away distantly. "He seemed so different at first, Robin. _Genuinely_ different. I could almost swear he wasn't always evil. There were so many times when he seemed so…" She flinched to even think of it. "He seemed so charming," she whispered, "it was like he was someone different. He even came to see me when I was in hospital. I saw him. Through my coma." She paused. "He spoke to me… he said some things that were…" she shook her head. All of a sudden a lot of things were starting to seem strange about her early encounters with him compared to the evil man he transpired to be. "He seemed truly concerned for me, Robin. He wanted to help me, and I am _sure_ he meant it." She looked at him intently, urging him to believe her. Robin had only seen Keats as the personification of evil. He had no idea what he was like at first. She sighed, knowing she couldn't convince him otherwise. "In the early days he was so kind… _warm_…" she began to feel ashamed to remember, "I… I _did_ feel attracted to him," she looked down, "for a little while. Gene and I… it was before we were together, and we weren't exactly getting on." She was horrified by her own admission, "we'd kind of lost the trust between us, and Jim picked up on that. _Keats,"_ she flinched, realising her slip. She sighed distantly.

"When did he change?" Robin asked quietly.

"It happened slowly," she told him, "gradually. I was… I was worried about something Gene wasn't telling me. I can't remember all the details. It was about Gene's DI up in Manchester. Sam. Sam Tyler." She sighed, "I wish my memory wasn't so full of holes." She sat up a little straighter and tried to focus. "Gene… Gene was implicated in his death. Or…" she cringed. "I think… _I_ implicated him…" she shook her head slightly. "So much has gone."

"Keats picked up on that doubt and ran with it," he said, "right?"

Alex nodded.

"And as time went on I began to see Jim more as a foe and less as a friend, but I truly needed to know the truth about Gene so, reluctantly, I continued to help him, even though we were looking for different results."

Robin frowned.

"Can you stop calling him Jim?" he asked.

Alex cursed under her breath. She hadn't realised she'd done it again.

"Sorry," she said quietly. She tried to compose herself but the shame and distress were filtering back. "One day J-_Keats_ had asked me about my trust in Gene. There were things I'd seen and learnt that day… I was wrong to doubt him, but he was keeping secrets from me." She choked on the memory. "When he asked me if we needed to talk… I… I just followed him to his office. I _did_ need to talk. I was worried… scared for Gene. Scared for _both_ of us." She put her hand to her head. "Robin, I had no memory of what happened next. For years, I couldn't remember. I never questioned why… _stupidly,"_ she rubbed her forehead. "I thought, somewhere in my head, that I changed my mind and didn't talk to him after all. I don't know why. I think because it was easier to believe that than to think I had…" the words stuck in her throat and she couldn't get any further. She felt an arm slide around her shoulders; the support Robin offered to her was the one thing that helped her go on.

"Take it slowly," he whispered.

Alex nodded and swallowed hard.

"My dream," she began, "my _nightmare… _it filled in the blanks. We were down in his office and it was hot._so_ hot." She tugged a little at the collar of her shirt as the memory made her feel stifled. "It was always hot down there but never more so than that day. He handed me a drink. Oh, there was _always _alcohol around." She closed her eyes. "And there was something in the air. I don't know what it was. It was like the room was filled with noxious fumes and my head started spinning. I felt overcome. I don't know if it was the heat or…"

She felt Robin's other hand close over hers as she spoke.

"Go on."

She looked him in the eye for the first time.

"He had a hold over me," she whispered. "He caught my gaze and held it so firmly. He looked right into my soul and… and I couldn't say no." She swallowed so loudly that Robin heard a gulp. "But worse than that? He made it that I didn't _want_ to say no."

Robin wasn't sure if he understood.

"Did he force you?" he asked gently.

"Not physically," Alex whispered, "He… changed things inside my head. He made me want him so badly," her voice staggered as she felt a swirl of nausea rising again, "that when he asked if I wanted it… I was almost begging him."

Her words shocked Robin and he could hardly believe what he was hearing. He knew how much hatred Alex had for Keats. This seemed so horrifyingly against all he knew about their relationship.

"Did this ever happen again?" he asked.

Alex breathed in deeply.

"I have no idea," she whispered, "that was all I could recall." She put her hand to her head and gave a deep sigh of anguish. "There are so many gaps, Robin. And I don't just mean about Keats. Everything… And yet there are some things that I remember so clearly. I remember nights in the karaoke bar with Gene, belting out something shamefully embarrassing and then denying all knowledge of it the next day. I remember the day I moved into my new office and hung my name upon the door. I remember the night Gene fell down a hole on his way to propose…"

Robin scrambled upright suddenly.

"I didn't know you got engaged," he cried.

Alex nodded quietly.

"The night before Keats shot me," she whispered.

Robin bit his lip.

"Alex, exactly what did happen on that day?" he asked, "the day you got shot? How much can you remember?"

"Why?"

Maybe if we work out what happened we can work out how you can get back."

Alex raised an eyebrow. She liked his way of thinking.

"Alright," she cleared her throat and rose in her seat. She was relieved for the change in tone and to leave her nightmare on the side-lines, just for a short while. She knew she would have to confront it again in a while but her mind needed a break from the torture of knowing what she had done. She nodded. "I remember the night before, Gene asked me to marry him, in –" she was quick to point out "- his own inimitable way." Her smile shone with genuine happiness. "It wasn't quite the romantic moment you and Simon shared, but it was very Gene."

Robin's eyes developed a glazed look.

"You remember me and Simon then?" he asked quietly.

Alex nodded.

"Of course," she smiled.

Robin gave a sad sigh.

"Simon asked me to marry him, then half an hour later we were separated forever," he said.

Alex froze.

"And I got shot the day after Gene proposed." She frowned. "This _being proposed to _thing… it's a dangerous business," she said.

Robin rubbed his head.

"Tell me everything went OK with Malcolm and Susannah after their engagement," he said. He meant it as a joke but Alex's face told him all he needed to know. "Shit… don't expand on that."

Alex breathed deeply, remembering Susannah's shooting and… and she wasn't sure what happened then. She remembered Malcolm had gone too but she'd blocked the details out. She closed her eyes.

"So," she whispered, "Gene proposed, and the next morning…" she trailed off. "I wish I could organise these thoughts more," she began, her old fighting spirit taking over, "God, what I wouldn't give for a whiteboard."

Robin hesitated.

"Would a flip chart work?" he asked.

Alex frowned.

"Why?"

Cautiously, Robin stood up.

"Come with me," he said.

Curiously Alex followed him to the hall cupboard which he opened slowly to reveal various items, from hoovers to watering cans. From within the depths of the darkness Robin pulled a large stand with an enormous pad of paper on it.

"What the -?" Alex put her hand to her mouth in surprise. She couldn't help a smile of amusement gracing her face.

"Simon changed after his accident," Robin began, "he chilled out a lot. But before that he was pretty deeply into his work. He used to literally bring his work home." He shuddered a little. "Used to leave the board everywhere. Nothing like looking up in the throes of passion to see a picture of a decapitated head with a possible list of suspects staring back at you."

Alex wasn't sure whether to laugh or gag at that concept. In the end she settled for ignoring it and helped Robin to carry the flip chart through to the lounge. To her delight there were two pens already attached to the frame by string. She took the cap from a green pen and tested it to make sure it hadn't run out. Just holding the pen helped her to feel more in control again. She could almost pretend she was back in 1995, leading a team to solve a crime. She wrote _1995_ on one side of the paper and _2011_ on the other then turned to Robin who had taken a seat on the couch.

"Right," she took a deep breath in, "I remember… I remember on the morning after Gene's proposal…" she wrote _'Proposal'_ to one side of 1995, "something happened… Keats… confronted Simon. He thought he had a way to force him to work for him." She hesitated, "something to do with _you."_ She looked down but couldn't remember what it was. Robin knew – he remembered Alex's desperate plea to stop him from making a grave mistake. He wasn't ready to talk about that though and stayed quiet as Alex added his name under '_Proposal'._ She closed her eyes and tried to remember as much as she could. "I remember Simon and Gene having a row. Something about Keats's plan made them so angry…" She added the word _"Anger"_ under the others. "I remember confronting Keats… we showed him something… a tape." She added _'Tape'_ to her list of words, "and then… I remember the bullet. He shot me." She wrote _'Shooting'_ on the board and stepped back. "So, what have we got?"

Robin spluttered as he tried not to laugh, earning him an accusatory glare from Alex.

"_Prats,"_ he explained, indicating the letters lining up on the left hand side of the paper.

Alex scowled, her professional, tough side coming back in full force.

"Grow up," she mumbled, ripping down the paper and starting again. She wrote the two year numbers on the fresh sheet and tried reorganising her thoughts. "Alright. Proposal. Keats approaching Simon." She stopped as she wrote _"Keats = Simon"_ on the board and sighed. "I wish I could remember what he said to him, Robin. I know it was about you…"

Robin bit his lip and felt his stomach churning. As much as he wanted to sweep it under the carpet and pretend it had never happened it was time to talk about that day.

"Alex," he began quietly, "I know what it was about."

Alex looked at him, feeling surprised. She waited for a second expecting him to continue but he seemed downcast and awkward suddenly.

"You do?" she wasn't sure how he could possibly have known about an event from 1995 after he left and waited curiously for some explanation.

"I don't know how to say this," Robin put his head in his hands and gave a very deep sigh. He felt so stupid. He felt so regretful for the dumb mistake he came so close to making. "Alex, I…" he closed his eyes and swallowed, "I was going to take my own life." He kept his eyes closed so that he didn't have to see her expression, "I can't believe how weak and terrible that sounds. But I'd lost everything – I mean, _everything._ Simon was gone, I'd been suspended, I had no money, I was being charged with Simon's death because I was driving the car when we crashed. I thought dying would solve everything; that I would be out of this terrible, depressing mess and back with _him._ But believe me, I regret ever thinking about this now. Now that I know what I know."

"And," Alex's voice was gentle; calm. Soothing, "what do you know now?"

Robin felt tears starting to well in his eyes. He worked as hard as he could to fight them.

"Keats gets first pick of suicides," he whispered, "it was all in the letter from Simon. If I'd done it," he couldn't bring himself to express what _'it'_ was again, "I would have been his, forever. That's what Keats had over Simon." He swallowed. "My soul." He finally opened his eyes and looked at Alex through a blurry field of vision masked by tears. "You stopped me."

Alex couldn't understand what he meant.

"How could I have stopped you?"

"I came to your room in the hospital," Robin whispered, "I did that a lot… after I came back… I came to say goodbye. Just as I was going to leave, one of your machines started making a strange noise and while I tried to work out where it was coming from," he paused and flinched. The memory of that day was raw, "you opened your eyes." He breathed in deeply. "You grabbed my hand and told me to live. Then…" he shook his head slowly. "You went into cardiac arrest… and a few hours later, you woke up. All on your own. Against all the medication they were giving you and everything. You just…" he paused, "it was your time to come back."

Alex stared at him, trying to process all he'd told her. It seemed ridiculous in many ways, but then again so did_ all_ of the situation. Finally she began,

"How could I have woken up and told you to live? I couldn't move… couldn't speak… when I came out my coma…"

Robin shook his head.

"It was a miracle," he whispered. He chewed on his lip again. "All I can think… all I can guess… is that at the moment Keats shot you, you woke up here, in this world, and somehow knew. You were my guardian angel."

Something in Robin's words cut a little too close to the bone. They sent a shiver down her spine but she couldn't place it. She looked back at the board, words in front of her that made little sense so far. The pieces were all scattered around and there didn't seem to be any way of fitting them together. She rubbed her head with the lid of the pen.

"Whatever happened," she whispered, "Whatever I did… I'm really glad you're still here, Robin."

"For what it's worth, I'm glad too," Robin said quietly.

Alex closed her eyes. She couldn't stand to think about Keats trying to take Robin as the ultimate pawn in his long-running battle with Simon any longer. It churned her up inside. She turned her attention back to the board and tried hard to recall more from her final moments in 1995.

"Come on, Alex, _think,"_ she muttered, "There was Simon… Keats… Gene and Simon having a fight…" she cringed a little. "I think Gene got thrown out of his favourite coffee shop…" She drew a little picture of a latte on the board as she carried on thinking. "I remember being in Simon's flat. Lots of geeky stuff…" She trailed off and glanced guiltily at Robin. "Err, no offense…"

"None taken," said Robin.

She tapped the pen against the board and carried on struggling with her memory.

"There was something… I remember a plan. Something to try to defeat Keats. And I recall that Simon had to take an emergency trip to the toilet when the subject of Andrew Ridgeley came up."

Robin pulled a face.

"Alex, that's natural," he said, "it's the human response to the presence of _Wham_ memorabilia. It's not noteworthy."

Alex hesitated. She'd been about to draw a picture of Andrew Ridgeley beside the latte scribble but decided against it.

"Alright," she said, "what else…" she began to pace a little. Her stomach flip-flopped suddenly. "Simon… he went undercover," she stopped pacing and tried to think. "He went to Fenchurch West and that's when he found the tape."

"What was on the tape?" Robin tried, "what do you remember about it? Anything? Even a brief image?"

Alex squeezed her eyes shut and tried to picture the TV set as the video played but she could barely remember a thing.

"_Police…"_ she whispered, "…It could have been an episode of The Bill…" She opened her eyes with an angry sigh. "It's no use, Robin, I can't get any more than that." She angrily threw the pen down but as it was attached to the board with a piece of string it didn't have as much of an impact as a gesture as she'd hoped.

Robin developed a curious expression. His mind was working overtime. He glanced at her thoughtfully.

"Alex," he began, "your memory gaps…"

Alex hung her head.

"I know, I'm sorry," she whispered, "I'm doing my best to remember."

"No, listen," Robin got to his feet and looked at her seriously, "All the stuff you remember is just normal stuff… like your everyday life. Work things. Right?" she nodded. "It's as though everything you've lost is to do with… with what Gene's world is about. Anything that would make you realise it wasn't the 'real' world."

Alex thought about his words and gave a slow nod.

"That makes sense," she said quietly.

"And you also remember nothing about your life in two thousand and eight," Robin continued, "It's almost as though you've lost anything that might hamper you living in Gene's world and not believing it was a hundred percent real. Like you've forgotten anything that felt tied to here, or anything that would stop you from knowing that Gene's world wasn't the life you'd _always_ known."

Alex nodded again.

"That all makes perfect sense," she said, "but why would I block out those things when I am in two thousand and eleven? Surely I'd want to block out everything to do with Gene? To stop me from missing him and wanting to go back?"

This time it was Robin's turn to pace.

"But what if," he began, "and stick with me here…"

Alex developed a strange expression on her face.

"It sounds like you've just put your sci-fi brain in," she frowned.

Robin blushed a little.

"Possibly," he said.

Alex pulled a face.

"Tell me you're not about to start a sentence with '_there was this episode of The X Files where…'?"_

Robin gave a gentle laugh.

"No," he said, "but if the show was still being made I might have pitched this to them as an idea."

Alex looked at him more seriously.

"Go on," she said quietly.

Robin drew his breath in deeply.

"Alright," he began, "what of you weren't _supposed_ to come back here at all?"

"What do you mean?"

"What if your time was nearing an end, in one world or the other, and you were trying to make a choice?" Robin tried, "at one point, just after I came back, they dropped the dose on your medication and tried to bring you out of your coma but you had a heart attack. I thought at the time, what if you were trying to stay with Gene? But then I remembered Molly and your life here and I thought that choice would be too hard for you to make."

Alex bit her lip. She was picking up his habit now.

"What are you saying?" she asked quietly.

"Maybe you wanted to stay with Gene but you couldn't cope with losing Molly, so your mind blocked that out."

"Then how come I'm here?" Alex asked, "_with_ Molly but no memory of her?"

Robin shook his head.

"Maybe you went the wrong way," he whispered, "maybe you were ready to stay with Gene but Keats's bullet sent you the other way. "

Alex felt nauseous and hot suddenly.

"Are you saying I could be dead in nineteen ninety five?" she whispered.

Robin swallowed. He hadn't actually thought of that.

"It's possible," his voice broke a little, "or you could be in a coma. Or, you could still be there, walking around."

"Then how would I also be here, walking around?"

"I don't know," said Robin, "maybe part of you is still there?"

Alex froze a terrible realisation began to dawn on her. It started like a tingle at the top of her head and travelled through her body, right down to her toes.

"Which part?" she whispered.

Robin gulped. That didn't bear thinking about.

"We've got to get you home, Alex," he whispered.

Alex began to feel tired again. She started to sink into the sofa.

"I think the carbs have just run out from the lasagne," she said quietly.

Robin sat beside her. He felt as though his head could explode with the myriad notions travelling around inside of it. He looked at Alex, wishing there was more that he could do to help. As he stared, she began to look at him a little strangely.

"What?" he asked.

A tiny hint of a smile spread across her face.

"I've remembered something," she said, "About you."

Robin frowned.

"Me? What?"

"Sitting in the car, on the Nailer stake-out," she smiled, "you were looking at me strangely. I asked you if my head was spinning."

Robin laughed a little awkwardly and looked away in embarrassment.

"I couldn't believe you were actually real," he explained.

"I know," Alex nodded, "I remember. I actually remembered that." She paused. "That's the closest thing I've come to remembering about… well, the world."

Robin sighed and leaned back. He was starting to feel exhausted too.

"Is there anything else you remember about the shooting itself?" he asked, "anything about Keats? Why he shot you?"

Alex looked down and fell silent. She tried to get her brain to pump out as much information as she could.

"I think… I think the shot was random," she said quietly, "I just remember him firing around the room. One bullet hit a bed pan."

Robin frowned.

"A bed pan?" he cried, "does Gene have a problem you're not sharing with me?"

"No, no," sighed Alex, "we were in hospital."

"Why?"

_That was a good point,_ thought Alex. Why _were_ they there?

"A room," she said quietly, "a hospital room... Kim's room… she'd just had a miscarriage…"

She trailed off and her eyes met Robin's. Her utterance of Kim's name had set off epiphanies in both their minds. Both opened their mouths to speak but Alex's eyes seemed full of fear as opposed to Robin's spark of hope so he nodded to her and said, "You go first."

Alex hesitated. She felt tears welling in her eyes that she desperately wanted to hold back.

"Oh god, Robin," she whispered, "Kim had a miscarriage and the baby…" she swallowed, "It was Keats's baby. Keats was having sex with her, and he…" memories began to flood back, "whatever he did to her… to make her want to… that's what he did to me."

"Alex, are you _sure?"_

"Yes," Alex whispered, "he put a kind of spell on her too…"

"But how can you know that?" Robin asked, "maybe they were just…"

Alex shook her head.

"Kim's gay, Robin."

Robin hesitated.

"She…" he frowned, "God I remember now, she said her _wife…"_

Alex frowned.

"I don't remember you meeting Kim," she said.

Robin looked at her seriously.

"Not in nineteen ninety five," he said quietly, "on New Year's eve. She brought me Simon's letter. She was the one I told you about. She was the one from your time.

She memorised a letter for Simon and she brought it to me, the night before you woke up."

Alex felt a burst of energy surge through her.

"Robin, do you know what this means?" she cried, "someone else knows. She _knows,_ Robin!"

"Knows what?"

"Knows what has happened to _me!"_ Alex cried, "if Kim came back from ninety five then she will know what's going on there, right now!" Her heart began to pump at a thousand miles an hour, suddenly they weren't on their own any longer. "We need to find her," she began to pace wildly, running her fingers through her fringe, "we need to track her down and ask her. If I'm still alive in Gene's world then she'll know."

"But… but are you sure _you_ want to know?" Robin asked.

"What do you mean?"

"What if she gives you an answer you don't like?" Robin asked gently, "she might tell you that you didn't make it. That Keats killed you. She might tell you you're comatose there. She might tell you that another part of you is still there, happily married to Gene while you're stuck here, separated forever. Once she says the words, Alex, that's it forever. You'll never be able to take them back. You can't _'un-know' _them."

Alex hesitated. She knew Robin meant well and his words made sense. They made a _lot_ of sense. But Kim was the one ally they had. The one person who could give them some answers. Alex couldn't stay in this limbo forever, just 'hoping'. She needed to know if she ever had a chance of being with Gene. She needed to know if she would ever be happy again.

"I understand what you're saying," she whispered, "but I have to know. I _need _to know. If I'm stuck here forever, in this world, then I need to know for sure. But if I get home, if I ever get back…" she sighed, "then maybe she can tell me _how."_

Robin nodded slowly. He still felt a little doubtful, and it all felt a bit like the kind of paradox that years of sci-fi obsessions had warned him to avoid but Alex's plight was breaking his heart and he desperately wanted to help her to get home, no matter what it took. Slowly, he nodded.

"Alright," he whispered.

Alex looked at him hopefully.

"Alright?"

"We'll find her," he said, "but, Alex, it's not going to be easy."

"Surely you can check the database of Fenchurch East?" Alex asked, "find out where she is now?"

Robin hesitated. He developed pained expression.

"Kim… she doesn't work there any more," he said quietly, "she changed her name, changed her career, changed her whole identity."

Alex frowned.

"Why?" she whispered, "why did she do that?"

"So that Keats wouldn't be able to track her down," Robin explained quietly.

Alex nodded slowly. She was starting to understand now.

"Didn't she tell you her new name?"

Robin shook his head.

"No," he said quietly. He paused, his mind running over their conversation for clues. It had all passed in such a blur that he felt sure he had forgotten most of it but one thing stood out to him. "She did tell me about her new career… in a manner of speaking." He gave a little smile, thinking about that miracle night. "She made a joke when I said we might bump into each other at work. Said that would only happen if I took my police dogs for a tattoo."

Alex smiled.

"She was every keen on her body mods," she said quietly. She took a deep breath. "So she's a tattooist now?"

"It sounds that way," said Robin, "So we need to track down all the tattooists in the local area."

Alex hesitated.

"What if she's further afield?" she asked, "She might have gone elsewhere to avoid Keats."

Robin hesitated.

"Her visit was pretty late on New Year 's Eve," he said, "and she had to leave to get home to her family to celebrate the new year, so she couldn't have been going that far."

"She could have meant she was visiting family that were still in the area," Alex warned, "parents… siblings…?"

Robin sighed.

"Maybe," he said, "but I just got the feeling she meant her partner, maybe children."

Alex gave a slow nod.

"So we'll find all the local tattooists first," she said, "and call them. Ask for her."

"We don't know her new name," Robin reminded her.

Alex closed her eyes.

"_Damn."_

Robin took a deep breath.

"We'll visit them," he said, "we'll go round and visit them all. Wherever she is, we'll find her."

"Isn't that going to take a long time?" frowned Alex, "how many tattooists are there?"

"It's the only way of doing it," Robin told her, "we'll have to go round and see for ourselves. We can't phone them and say, _"Hello, have you got any female tattooists there? We don't know her name but she's definitely not called Kim."_ We'll have to go to them in person. There's no other way."

Alex sighed.

"I know," she said, "I'm just nervous of going out. Being seen."

"Believe me," said Robin, "one place Evan will _not _be looking in for you is in the tattoo studio."

Alex gave a gentle laugh. The thought of Evan turning up to find her and inadvertently getting something pierced or tattooed was endlessly amusing in a twisted way.

"No," she said, "I suppose not."

Robin nodded thoughtfully. He took a deep breath.

"We'll get a list of the local studios online. Simon will have an old laptop somewhere here," he said, "I've got a mobile dongle."

Alex cringed.

"I didn't wish to know that," she said, blushing.

"No!" Robin cried. He closed his eyes. "It's a thing you plug into a laptop to get broadband on the move."

Alex frowned.

"I don't want to know how broad it is either, thank you very much," she said quickly.

Robin sighed.

"_Broadband!_ It's super-fast internet!" he cried, _"Ohhh_…. Never mind…. You need to get back to the nineties, seriously, Alex."

Alex crossed her legs and squirmed uncomfortably for a moment before getting to her feet.

"The only place I'm going right now is to the bathroom," she mumbled quickly as the milk of magnesia started working and thunder rumbled through her guts.

Robin leaned back against the couch and closed his eyes as she rushed urgently out of the room. He knew that Kim could be the key to Alex finding her way home, he really did, but at the same time he knew the lengths Kim had gone to in order to stay hidden. She wasn't going to be easy to find. But he'd never seen such determination as the look that crossed Alex's face as she started knitting the clues together and if that was any indication then they would find her, sooner or later.

Now he just hoped that – when that time came – Kim would be able to give Alex some of the answers she was looking for. More than that, he hoped they would not be answers that would destroy her. Alex needed to get home. That was plain to see.

He hoped deeply that there was still a living, breathing Alex in nineteen ninety five for her broken soul to return to.


	33. Chapter 16, 1995: Improvvisato

**Chapter Sixteen: 1995**

Kim arrived back at Simon's looking brighter than she had done in all the time Simon had known her. She breezed through the door with a smile and began to chatter away.

"I'm off out tonight," she said brightly, "I've been living like a nun for the last two weeks so it's time I let my hair down and had a bit of fun." She was vaguely aware of Simon lying across the couch but was too busy looking for one of her bags to notice his gloomy expression, "I'm off for a night of good quality lager and bad quality music." She located the bag, pulled a pair of shoes from within and hopped around as she tried to pull them on. "Your new DC Lindsay invited me for Karaoke tonight. She seems nice. What's her story?" She stopped hopping as her foot finally went into the shoe and looked up. "Simon?" Her spirits sank as she caught sight of him. "Oh shit, not the jumper again." She slipped into an armchair and rubbed her head. "Must be serious. What's happened?"

Simon stared at the TV screen even though he had no idea what was on.

"Nothing," he mumbled.

"Hunt's thrown up into your Red Dwarf video collection hasn't he?"

"No."

"What is it then?" she looked around. "Where's the Guv?"

"Sitting in the kitchen, trying to cram the last two slices of my pizza into his greedy, oversized gut," Simon mumbled.

Kim drew back a little.

"_Ok, OK,"_ she held up her hands to try to repel Simon's anger, "bitter much?" she paused. "What happened?"

Simon scratched in his ear and folded his arms.

"We sort of had a row," he said.

"What sort of a row?" Kim frowned. She waited for Simon to reply but he ignored her so she sighed and got to her feet. "I'll cancel this evening," she said.

"What? Why?"

"If you're going to need a mediator then I'm not going to be able to go out on the piss, am I?"

"I don't need a mediator," Simon mumbled, "I need my bloody flat back." He looked up guiltily. "I don't mean from you," he said quickly, "you're fine."

Kim rubbed her head. Simon was giving her a migraine.

"So what happened? What the hell were you arguing about? Something to do with Alex?"

Simon sat up and put his head in his hands.

"It started with Gene declaring the Christmas TV guide to be a literary masterpiece and ended up with me yelling my head off," he said.

"_How?"_ Kim cried.

Simon shook his head slowly.

"I _knew_ I was no good at small talk," he said, "Gene didn't want to talk about Alex so we tried to find another topic but it didn't go too well." He ran his fingers through his hair. "I accidentally dredged up something from his past that he didn't want to talk about he started going on about Keats and my nipples."

"_What?"_

Simon didn't really want to expand on their fight any more.

"Can we just leave it?" he said tiredly.

"Not if World War Fenchurch is about to break out," said Kim.

Simon sighed and slowly got to his feet.

"It won't," he promised, "honestly. Kim, don't let me run your evening. You go out, I'll try to make amends with Gene." He saw Kim looking a little incredulous. "Really. The flat will still be standing when you get back. Go on – you'll have a good night. Lindsay's fun."

Kim hesitated. She still wasn't sure but if it was a choice between a boozy night belting out the latest Christmas releases or spending the night refereeing a boxing match between Gene and Simon's jumper, the first option won every time.

"Alright," she said, "if you're sure."

Simon nodded.

"Have fun," he said.

"I will," said Kim. She grabbed her bag and marched to the door before turning round, giving an ironic peace sign and advising, "make love, not war."

"Get lost," Simon sighed, throwing a cushion after her and watching as the door shut behind her. He put his hands in his pockets and slowly edged to the kitchen. He peered at Gene who was leaning back in his chair, looking both stuffed and sheepish. He looked at Simon, sat upright, belched and said;

"Look out, Noel Edmonds is back."

Simon started to regret putting the jumper on again. It was fast becoming his _'I'm Depressed'_ jumper.

"I knew you'd spend the night taking the piss out of it whether it was on my back or in the wardrobe," Simon said, "so I might as well wear it and be warm." He sat down awkwardly at the table. "Sorry," he said quietly.

"Yeah. Me an' all," Gene mumbled gruffly.

Simon sighed.

"For what it's worth," he said, "I have no intention of defecting. I don't know what happened with Keats but you're stuck with me at Fenchurch East. Sorry about that."

Gene grunted a half-laugh.

"I'm sure I can put up with yer for a few decades," he said.

Simon leaned back in his chair.

"And sorry for raking up the past. Whoever Sam was, I'm sorry you had to say goodbye."

Gene gave a nod and sighed.

"You remind me of 'im a bit."

"You said we had a lot in common," Simon told him, "when you were pissed."

Gene nodded.

"He was always giving me trouble. Trying to get me to buck up me ideas a bit. Drove me barmy. Bigger pain in the backside than a case of piles."

"So he _did _remind you of me then," Simon smiled.

Gene reached into his pocket and pulled out his flask. The pizza had been taken care of, now it was time to embrace the hair of the dog. He saw Simon's disapproving look as he supped from the flask and decided to ignore it.

"You're not me mother, Shoebury," he said.

Simon sat up straight and held his palms up in peace.

"No lectures," he said, "not tonight. I promise."

Gene took another swig. He gasped a little, set his flask down and looked at Simon seriously.

"Alex," he began.

Simon took a deep breath.

"What happened last night, Gene?"

"I went to see her," Gene explained, "I had to know if there was anything left in there of my Bolly. I poured my bloody heart out and got a knee in the balls for the bother. And it was good stuff, Shoebury, all girly feelings. You'd have been proud."

Simon frowned.

"You make me sound like a bloody Mills and Boon advocate," he said.

"That's not my Alex," Gene told him.

Simon leaned forward. He linked his hands like a talk show host.

"Tell me again what happened in hospital," he said, "when Alex got shot. You said something about the screen."

Gene nodded.

"After you and Metal Mickey went after Jimbo, the TV stayed on," he explained, "Alex woke up. She grabbed your mate Batman by the wrist, told 'im to live and then her heart bleeding stopped. I saw them trying to resuscitate her. Doctors here were doing the same with mine. Both survived. I don't know anything after that… Bolly got taken to surgery and I sat in those bloody uncomfortable chairs for hours." He shook his head slowly. "That telly thing has me baffled for a start. Messages are for the _living._ The Sam Tylers, the Alex Drakes and the Kim Stringers of this world – they all had messages. Nothing for those of us who were long gone."

Simon took a deep breath.

"Maybe the rules are changing?" he suggested.

"How do you mean?"

Simon rubbed his head.

"I had a message," he said quietly, "from Robin. The day Alex woke up… a song on the radio. A dedication." He noticed Gene looked at him strangely. "I knew it should have been impossible," he said, "but I was too grateful to question it."

"You never mentioned it," Gene said, almost accusingly.

"Alex had just woken up," Simon reminded him, "you had more important things on your mind."

Gene wasn't sure why he felt so annoyed about being left out of the loop on that. Perhaps things _were _changing. He didn't cope well with change.

"Anyway, point is," he continued gruffly, "I saw both of them. They both decided to live. She could have made her choice right there and then, Simon. Could have gone back, could have stayed. She wanted both."

"She fought hard to stay the day before," Simon reminded him quietly, "when she faded out and came back. She wanted to stay with you."

"Couldn't say goodbye to her daughter though," Gene told him, "that's her flesh and blood. She wanted to be with her too."

"So maybe she found a way to do both?" Simon said quietly.

"How?"

Simon shrugged a little, staring at the wall.

"She woke up _here_… maybe she woke up _there_ as well."

"How could she when I've got 'er 'ere, threatening to take me to the Super?" Gene asked.

Simon closed his eyes for a moment.

"Maybe," he said, "you got the _wrong_ Alex."

"I know that much." Gene muttered, reaching for the flask again.

"Well, what if you got an Alex that was supposed to go the two thousand and _bollocks_ as you put it?" asked Simon.

"I got a reset Alex," said Gene, "the same one I met when she first arrived.

"Maybe you didn't," said Simon, "maybe you didn't get the one who's come from the future, maybe you got the one going _back_ to the future."

Gene hesitated. He drank a large gulp of scotch. He stared at Simon. Finally, he spoke.

"Sometimes," he began, "I think there's more bollocks that come out yer mouth than you keep in yer underpants," he said.

"No, hear me out…"

Gene frowned.

"This had better not be a plot device from Red Dwarf you're about to share with me," he said.

"No, but I might pitch it for series seven," said Simon, "anything's got to be better than _'Beyond a Joke'._"

Gene leaned back in his chair, gave a deep sigh and braced himself for Simon's sci-fi brain to run riot.

"Go on then," he prompted.

Simon took a deep breath.

"Alex must have been so,_ so_ torn between staying here or going home," he said, "she already had to make that decision once the day before. What if Keats's bullet gave her the option to go either way; to stay or go, her choice? Or maybe, she _had_ to go home, her pull to her daughter was too strong, and she blotted out anything and everything that happened in your world because she knew it would be too painful to leave you and the life she's made for herself here?"

Gene thought very carefully for a few minutes. He swallowed.

"If that's the case," he began, "then why is Miss Amnesia Nineteen Ninety Five walking around in _my_ world with 'er knickers in a twist?"

Maybe she got sucked in the wrong direction?" Simon suggested, "Maybe she was supposed to be going home but something about Keats shooting her made her stay here?" he hesitated. Another thought struck him. "You said… you said both Alexes were alive," he continued, "both made the choice to live. So what if…" he put his hand to his head. This was really starting to twist his brain. "What if both of them _literally_ did make the decision to stay, but something went wrong and they went the wrong way round?"

Gene looked at Simon as though he was talking Portuguese.

"You've got two minutes to put that into language the Gene Genie understands," he began, "otherwise I'm going to go and let yer video collection play with the traffic.

Simon frowned and opened his mouth to berate Gene but at the last minute stopped abruptly. There was a piece of garlic bread on the table. He picked it up.

"Alright," he said, "Alex's dilemma, explained in a language the Gene Genie will understand." He held the bread aloft. "This is Alex. Right?"

Gene stared at the bread. Then he started at Simon. Finally, he looked back at the bread.

"I've been wasting the last fifteen years of me life with a stick o' garlic bread," he said.

Simon ignored that.

"This is Alex," he said again, "This represents her soul. Right, so, Keats shot her and there were two Alexes in two different times, both wanted to live and both wanted to go home. So what is, maybe, each Alex got half of her soul?" He broke the bread in two. "This piece," he held up the half in his left hand, "went to the body in two thousand and _bollocks._ This piece," he held his other hand higher, "stayed here." He noticed some dip and dunked the 2011 piece of bread into it. "This piece took with it all the memories from her old life and left out all the ones form her time with you so that, when she woke up, she wouldn't remember you and hurt from being apart. While this one," he dunked the 1995 bread into a different dip, "took with it all the memories of her time with you and nothing to do with her old life back home, so that she could stay here without missing her daughter. Following me?"

Gene nodded.

"So far."

"But," Simon continued, "what if…" he swapped the dips around, "this Alex took the memories from here… and _this_ Alex took the memories from her old life… by mistake?" he paused.

"You know, if more members of CID explained their theories with food," Gene began, "I think our success rate would increase by eighty percent."

"One Alex, soul splits in half, each half gets the wrong memories," Simon summed up, "_You're _left with an Alex who doesn't know you from Adam, and somewhere back in her own time…"

"…Bolly's walking around saying _'What daughter?'_" Gene concluded for him with a sigh.

Simon nodded.

"Exactly," he said. He took a bite out of the bread in his hand.

Gene frowned.

"You've just eaten Alex," he said.

Simon sighed as he chewed his mouthful.

"Demonstration's over," he mumbled, "now it's just garlic bread again."

He set both halves of Alex back down on the table where he and Gene stared at them for a long time, almost as though they expected the real Alex to come sneaking out from behind one. Gene took a swig from his flask, put it down and bit into 1995 Alex. He thought silently for a while longer as he chewed, swallowed, then gave a hefty sigh.

"Bugger," he said.

Simon nodded.

"My sentiments exactly," he said.

Gene looked down at the table. Suddenly he began to feel a focus to his mission developing. They had a possible angle now. Somewhere to start.

"So, Shoebury," he began, "this is _your_ bloody sci-fi sitcom. What do we do now?"

Simon scratched his head.

"Can I get back to you on that one?" he sighed.

"You'd better," said Gene, getting to his feet, "I'm relying on yer geek brain to help me on this one."

As he stood up and left to pay a visit to the bathroom, Simon gave one long, depressed, anxious sigh.

"Just because I'm a nerd doesn't mean I have all the answers!" he mumbled. With the pressure piled on, he took a step even he wasn't expecting, swiped Gene's flask and took an illicit swig. He pulled a face and gasped as the harsh liquid stung his throat on the way down and shuddered at the taste. Coughing and spluttering a little, he set the flask back on the table before Gene could come back and find him sneaking a sip. He put his head in his hands and gave a deep, worried sigh. "We're screwed," he commented.

~xXx~

Alex lifted her glass and took a sip of her wine. The glass has been full almost all night. Every time the level started to drop, there was the bottle again, resting at the rim, a glug of red liquid flowing from its depths and filling her glass again.

"You have spoilt me rotten, Jim," she said, hiding a little shyly behind the glass.

Keats smiled back; his eyes deep and captivating. He'd used those eyes to great effect, right from the moment he found Alex mourning the pieces of her broken life on the pavement outside Fenchurch East earlier that day. He had been the perfect host and the perfect gentlemen. His first stop on the tour of what he dubbed in his head as _Life With Keats_ was a trip to Fenchurch West and a guided tour of his department.

His DI, Victoria Stone, had been more than a little shocked to see him strolling through the office with Alex in tow.

"Sir?" He voice had reflected her immense surprise, "what are you doing here? I thought you had another two weeks of compassionate leave?"

Keats had looked a little uncomfortable as he tried to gloss over that fact in front of Alex. He'd pulled at the collar of his shirt and surrounded the statement with fake smiles and loud statements about his possible new recruit heading up the new Hi-Tech Crimes division.

Victoria had been more than a little put out by that development. After a short-lived recruitment of a DCI Simon Shoebury to cover that post, Victoria had been thrown in at the deep end and had spent the last week and a half getting the department off the ground while simultaneously trying to co-ordinate CID during Keats's absence. Her approach to Alex had been cold and aloof, angered by her sudden displacement from the department for another of Keats's 'projects'.

But aside from DI Stone's cold manner Alex had seemed impressed with Fenchurch West and the way Keats ran his department. A tour of the workplace had been quickly followed by some property investigation. Alex had spoken of her reluctance to return home – "_an over-enthusiastic ex who has his own key,"_ was how she had described her issue.

Keats's words came back to her as she smiled at him from behind her glass.

"_I might be able to help you with that,"_ he'd told her, "I have this property… I'm supposed to be renting it but I'm actually staying somewhere else for the time being. House-sitting for a relative. You're welcome to stay if you want."

With that he'd taken her to a quite beautiful, if impersonal house. The kitchen had taken her breath away, the strong wooden table being the scene for a long conversation about her potential job over coffee and cake.

Finally the day had moved to evening and the charming man offered to end a near-perfect day with the perfect night out. A restaurant, candles, wine and the most charismatic company she could have imagined.

"You know," she began as she took a forkful of gateaux, "up until today I had been worried about my state of mind."

"In what way?" Keats asked her, his eyes taking in every inch of her beautiful face. There was a time he'd known that face so well. But as the years had passed, every glimpse of it had reflected only her horror at his presence. To see that smile, that warmth back on her face as she stared at him – it stirred up something deeply hidden within him.

"Well," she continued, her eyes moving to her food as she felt a little nervous, "up until today all that my mind had inflicted upon me was one disaster after another. A hideous 'hospital recovery scenario'," she put down her fork to offer up some air quotes, "a flabby, aging body, a wardrobe full of cheesy nineties fashion and a so-called relationship with a man that one of my patients had created in his own state of psychosis! But I see it now." She took a mouthful of gateaux, chewed it quickly and swallowed it down so that she could continue. "I see what my mind was doing now. I had intended this all along."

Keats looked a little confused and gave a nervous laugh.

"Oh yes?" he asked.

"Yes," Alex's smile was charming and bubbly, "it was knocking me right down to square one so that I could _rebuild,"_ her eyes glistened with hope, "I could build my life back up, start again, receive the job I deserved, the home that I dreamed of…" she paused and blushed a little, "maybe even meet someone special."

Keats gave a slightly awkward laugh and looked at his plate as he pushed the remains of his desert around the plain china.

"Oh yeah?" he asked, "and who might that be then?"

Alex felt a little giddy. It could have been from all the wine – oh, it could _so_ easily have been from the wine. But it could also have been from those eyes as they caught her gaze.

"Well," she began, "let's just say you're the first good thing my mind has conjured up for me since I got here."

Keats gave a smile. It was a genuine smile in many ways. He couldn't remember the last time anyone had paid him a compliment. In fact, had they? _Ever?_

"Well," he began, "I'm not sure I understand everything you've told me, but if there's one place I'm glad to be, it's in your head."

Alex blushed a little and drank some more of her wine. She felt full, squiffy and happy for the first time since she had woken in 1995 and those feelings were much appreciated. Now, however, she was wondering where the night would lead. She wished her mind wouldn't take her down that avenue, but she couldn't help it. When was the last time she'd had intimate company? She couldn't remember. Too much time working and not enough time playing, that was the problem.

As dessert and wine disappeared into their mouths and the bill was duly picked up by the welcoming stranger, Alex felt anticipation beginning to build inside of her. She felt herself wondering about where the night would lead. If this were the real world she would never, ever consider the place her thoughts were going now. But this _wasn't_ the real world – it was a place of her mind's creation and her actions had no more influence here than they would back home in 2008.

She found herself helped to her feet by the charming stranger and his arm was soon linked through hers as he walked her out to a taxi. The ride to the house he'd shown her earlier passed in a flurry of flirty giggles, the tossing of her hair and charmed smiles on both sides.

Finally at the door, she wondered where the moment would lead. She found herself swallowing nervously as he stood, an inch away from her, on the doorstep.

"Plenty of clean sheets in the bedroom," he told her, "Some food in the kitchen. I'll sort you out with everything else in the morning."

Alex smiled. She felt herself swaying a little against the door post as the alcohol did a number on her co-ordination.

"Well," she whispered, "Jim, it's been a… a magical evening." She closed her eyes briefly and took in a breath of cold winter air. "You've been perfect. Perfectly charming. The perfect gentlemen."

Keats smiled back.

"I'm glad to hear it," he said.

"And now," she told him, "I'm left wondering one thing."

"Oh yes? What might that be?"

Alex blushed.

"Are you going to stay the perfect gentlemen?" she began, feeling a little uncomfortable for using such a cheesy line, "Or are you going to find another way to finish off the evening?"

Keats raised an eyebrow. He could feel himself sweating a little.

"What would be the perfect end to the evening for you?" he asked.

Alex blushed.

"I don't know," she whispered.

"Well, what would your _mind_ like me to do?"

Alex hesitated.

"Well now," she began, "I think…. If you invite yourself in for coffee… conversation…" she gave a coy smile, "whisk me off upstairs and give me a guided tour of the bedroom, I think I will be _very _disappointed with your role as a _perfect gentleman."_

Keats raised an eyebrow.

"Oh yes?"

"Yes," said Alex, "but, if you say goodnight, end the evening like a gentleman and walk away then," she paused, "I will be _very_ disappointed with my mind."

Keats felt a dangerous combination of desire and arousal as he felt his pulse rate rising and a surge of excitement running through his body. He licked his lips involuntarily as he stared at hers.

"Well," he said, "what a dilemma. Disappointed in me or disappointed in yourself."

Alex found her own tongue running across her lips, mirroring his action. Her breath was fast and shallow as the butterflies inside her made it difficult to breathe. She felt herself drawn in the direction of the stranger who'd swept her off her feet, picked her up from the pavement and turned her world around in the space of a day. Without even realising it she found her eyes closing. Her feet began to stretch as she rose on tiptoes and breathed in deeply. As though drawn forward with a magnet, she felt herself moving, her lips reaching out to feel his against them, waiting for that kiss – the inevitable kiss to make her feel truly alive for the first time since she awoke in this strange place.

The wait, the anticipation, the expectation – that moment, that delicious, devastating moment was killing her. The moment seemed to stretch on forever and yet there was nothing. No sensation. No lips against hers. Finally, she opened her eyes and saw Keats, far away at the end of the path. Her thumping heart rose into her chest with shock as she gasped out a questioning,

"_Jim?"_

Keats smiled at her. There was a definite look in his eyes. A wickedness.

"Never let it be said I'll disappoint a beautiful woman," he said. He raised his hand in a little wave and nodded. "Good night, Alex. I'll be along to pick you up in the morning – for your first day at work."

He winked, smiled again and began to head toward the road.

Alex watched him go, her heart beating so fast she thought it was going to fly up into her throat and explode. She pressed her fingers to her lips – so certain she had been of a kiss that her mouth felt alone and loss without his reciprocation. She gave a tiny gasp involuntarily, her body reacting to the rise of emotions and hormones his presence had stirred up inside of her and saw him disappear into the darkness of the night. Every moment she'd spent in his presence had brought more questions than answers and she felt him casting a spell of curiosity and anticipation over her.

As she closed the door and slipped the bolt across she felt her cheeks flushing with heat. Her chest felt hot and damp with perspiration as the feeling he had left her with sent shivers through her spine. There was something about that man. Something very strange and spellbinding. She wished she didn't have to wait until the morning to find out more.

She shook her head a little, trying to cut herself free from the web of temptation he was spinning around her and sighed.

"Bed," she whispered, "must get to bed. The sooner I get to sleep…" she sighed. Waiting for her second encounter with Keats in the morning felt like waiting for Santa on Christmas Eve.

Winding her way up the stairs, she wished her heart would slow to a normal pace. She felt like a blushing school girl waiting for her first date. She praised her subconscious for delivering such a smooth and charming escape from the nightmare existence she'd faced so far. It was about time her head cut her a break.

"And tomorrow," she told her reflection as she passed the mirror, "you are going to get your brain back into action, and from there you will get strong. Strong enough to find your way out of this place."

Thoughts of Molly and of home filled her mind as she fell upon the bed and slipped into sleep, fully clothed. The rollercoaster of a day had left her exhausted and in desperate need for rest. One man filled her dreams that night – dark, mysterious and full of charm. By the time morning arrived her strength had been restored and her fascination for the stranger had grown. Already she felt drawn in so deeply by his eyes and his promises. She couldn't wait to see what a whole new day would bring for her. Whatever was ahead, she knew_ Jim_ would be right at the centre of it and that thought made her glow with excitement, both inside and out.


	34. Chapter 17, 2011: Syncopation

_**A/N – Since they're both a little shorter I'm posting 2 chapters today. This is the first one!**_

**Chapter Seventeen: 2011**

Alex returned for her third trip to the bathroom and glanced at the clock. It was half past two in the morning. She fell heavily back onto the couch, pulling the duvet around her, and groaned.

"Stupid milk of magnesia," she mumbled. She could swear after that last trip her stomach had gurgled; "_My name is Alex's stomach, I've just been tortured by milk of magnesia and that medicine has sent me back to the bathroom…"_

She hadn't been to sleep yet. All she'd done for hours was to stare at the board. There were a few more words on there now, but however many words she and Robin had added they still didn't bring her any closer to getting a direct train back to 1995.

Over on the 1995 side they'd added things like _'Hospital', 'TV – Tape'_ and_ 'Bullets – bedpan – _me' while on the 2011 side there were delights such as _'Evan', 'Obsessed – protecting me?'_ and '_Layton'._ In the middle of the board was the word _'Kim',_ ringed and underlined three times.

Alex glanced up as she heard footsteps coming closer and a very slow, exhausted and miserable looking Robin appeared, wrapped in a blanket.

"Oh god, Robin, I'm sorry, did I wake you?" she asked anxiously.

Robin shook his head.

"I've not been to sleep yet," he said, "Not for want of trying."

"I think we've screwed up our sleep patterns," Alex said quietly.

Robin nodded.

"That's part of it," he said quietly.

Alex looked at him curiously as he sank into the arm chair, the blanket smothering him from head to toe.

"What's the matter?" she asked quietly.

Robin exhaled loudly. He hadn't realised how dark his emotions had grown.

"It's being in that room without Simon," he said quietly.

Alex looked down.

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

Robin closed his eyes for a moment.

"It just feels too weird," he confided. He leaned back and sighed. "Have you been to sleep at all?"

"Not yet," Alex groaned, "I've spent the last couple of hours running between the bathroom and the flip chart. Between my brain and my stomach, there's not much of me left to rest."

Robin looked at her seriously.

"Are you worried about tomorrow?" he asked, "About finding Kim?"

Alex hesitated.

"I'm more worried about _not_ finding Kim," she said quietly.

Robin chewed on his lip anxiously.

"I know," he said, "and I know there's a chance she's further away from here. Maybe we _won't_ find her. But we'll do all we can to try."

Alex nodded slowly.

"I feel so selfish," she began, "I've taken up so much of your time and energy, and yet… really… you hardly know me."

"I know enough," Robin smiled.

"What about work?" she asked him.

"What about it?"

"Won't they be chasing you up?"

Robin looked a little distant.

"I don't start back until next week," he said quietly, "they gave me two weeks on full pay to get myself together after I was acquitted."

Alex closed her eyes. She started finally to feel a little sleepy.

"What are you going to do after all this is over, Robin?" she asked.

"All what?" he frowned

"Me," said Alex, "_this._ Whether I get back or whether I'm stuck here forever?" she paused. "There's going to be questions. Evan… your job… there could be a huge fallout from this. What are you going to say when someone turns up on your doorstep and asks you where you've been for the last two days?"

Robin looked a little melancholy.

"I'll say I've been going through Simon's things," he said quietly. Alex opened her eyes again and gave him a sympathetic look. "And it's only half a lie," he said, "I found that old laptop. Looked up all the tattooists in the local area. I've got a big list. Maps and everything. We'll start working our way through them tomorrow, first thing in the morning."

Alex felt butterflies in the pit of her stomach at the thought of it. It was a mix of nervous excitement and strong anxiety. The thought of seeing Kim again was giving her hope in more ways than one – it wasn't just the hope that she might shed some light into her getting home but also the whole idea of seeing another familiar face gave her a kind of burst of anticipation that ran through her whole body.

Despite that excitement, she felt her eyelids closing again and this time they weren't taking no for an answer.

"You know," she whispered, "I think this time, I might be able…"

She didn't quite make it to the end of her sentence as the elusive sleep she'd been chasing for hours caught up with her all at once and knocked her from her last moments of consciousness. Robin's own heavy eyelids began to close as he smiled at the sight of her finally drifting off. Maybe it was being out of Simon's bedroom that helped him to drift away too, he wondered. Or maybe it was finding the comfort of being with a friend. Either way, soon they were both asleep and garnering the energy and strength they'd need for the kind of day no one should ever have to endure.

~xXx~

Alex's eyes fluttered open as a shard of light hit her through a gap in the curtains. She mumbled and muttered a little to herself as she slowly gathered her thoughts together and sat up. She pushed the duvet to one side and blinked a few times. The clock showed it was nearing nine and the sounds she could hear indicated Robin was already working on breakfast. That thought made her smile a little. A gnawing hunger inside of her took her through to the kitchen in a hurry. It was funny, she thought as she watched Robin setting a couple of steaming mugs on the table, but Robin seemed to need someone to look after as much as _she _needed someone to help her out.

"Morning," he said as he saw her, "how are you feeling?"

Alex rubbed her sleepy eyes and smiled as she sat down at the table.

"Like I've got an information hangover," she said, her head aching from their brainstorming session the night before.

"I know what you mean," sighed Robin, "this is worse than that time me and Simon tried to work out the complexities of using a time machine to go back and stop me from indulging in my short lived ambition to become a lion tamer."

Alex decided not to ask. She lifted the mug beside her and breathed in deeply. The smell of the coffee was already starting to wake her senses.

"I dreamed last night," she said quietly.

Robin froze and looked around in concern.

"Keats?" he asked nervously.

"No," Alex's voice was quiet; distant but calm, "_home_. Gene was there. Simon, Kim…" she paused. "You were there too."

Robin turned back to the crockery he'd been dealing with.

"I'd be anywhere to avoid doing last night's washing up," he said uncomfortably.

Alex closed her eyes.

"I was supposed to be doing that, wasn't I?" she said.

"It's alright," Robin began, "it can wait twenty four hours, just for once. Sod the plates. We're already operating outside of the law."

The thought of Robin regarding not doing the washing up as coming parallel to operating outside the law made Alex give a little giggle. She ran a hand through her hair and sighed.

"So," she began quietly, "where do we start?"

"With breakfast," Robin said.

"And after that?"

Robin sighed.

"I got a map off Google, all the tattoo studios are on there. We'll start with the closest ones and work our way outwards."

Alex nodded, pretending she knew what a Google was.

"And going back to point one on the schedule?" she said, "what's for breakfast?"

Robin leaned back against the counter.

"Looks like you've got a choice," he said, "it's a nice, greasy fry up courtesy of the convenience store earlier this morning, or a bowl of just-about-in-date Fruit 'N' Fibre."

Alex pulled a face.

"I don't think my stomach will appreciate an overabundance of fibre this morning," she said.

"Heart attack on a plate it is then," said Robin, "good choice."

Alex watched quietly as Robin set about producing the kind of meal she knew Gene would die for, except his would have to be followed by his darned morning latte. It reminded her of those lazy mornings after a heavy night at the bar when only a plate full of bacon, egg and sausages would do. Before she knew it, she was lost in thoughts of home again. They made her feel warm and safe. So did the sight of the extremely unhealthy breakfast that was heading her way. Cabbage soup be damned, _this _was the stuff that would get her strong again.

It seemed as though breakfast passed by all too quickly. The food was cooked, served and consumed almost in the blink of an eye. Perhaps, Alex decided, it was because there was a part of her that had started to feel such fear and trepidation at the thought of their Kim-seeking mission that day. She wished there was a way to delay the hour, but at the same time she knew they needed to get started as quickly as possible.

As their breakfast came to an end, she excused herself and headed to the bathroom where she confronted her reflection in the mirror again. Aside from the fringe, little had changed.

"You're a mess, Alex Drake," she said to herself, "a shadow."

Ferociously brushing her teeth and her hair, she chose a fresh shirt from Simon's wardrobe, smartened herself as much as possible and set off to the kitchen where Robin was concluding the scraping of leftovers into the bin.

"Hey, you're looking a bit fresher," he smiled, "I'm sorry you've only got Simon's shirts to choose from."

"That's OK," Alex said. The oversized shirts at least hid her ribs a little. "But this boring hair has to go. I don't suppose Simon would have kept any hair dye or a pair of curling tongs around here would he?" she asked, knowing full well her request would be futile.

"Sorry, Alex," Robin said apologetically, "Simon spent most of his time trying to make his hair as flat as possible, curling tongs would be like, _the enemy."_

Alex gave a little smile.

"Thought so, but I thought I'd ask anyway." She paused. "Can we stop at a chemist along the way?"

"Of course," Robin frowned a little, "you're not feeling unwell are you?"

"No, but my hair looks like death warmed up," Alex ruffled it a little and pulled it over one shoulder, "I feel an emergency bottle of hair dye coming on."

It seemed like such a strange thing to say, but it warmed Robin's heart. Alex might have been in a strange place with strange people but she hadn't lost herself, and that was good to see.

"We'll see what we can do," he said, "although, if there are any self-service machines, you're staying in the car."

"Agreed," Alex held up her hands with a smile.

A look exchanged between them that spoke of their nerves and anticipation for the day ahead. They both knew their quest to find Kim could send Alex propelling back to 1995, or it could confirm that she was stuck in this strange damned life forever. Either way, they would soon have some more definite answers and that was a hundred percent more than they had right now.

As they gathered their maps and directions, both felt a surge of excitement, accompanied by pure fear. Neither could predict what would lay ahead on their search or what they would find out but they both knew it had to be done. And, side by side, they had the strength to do so.


	35. Chapter 17, 1995:  Nocturne

_**A/N – the second of 2 chapters today**_

**Chapter Seventeen: 1995**

Kim staggered into the flat, took her shoes off, fell over and climbed to her feet, smoothing herself down. She giggled a little, then slammed her hand over her face to stop herself from laughing too much.

"_Shhhhh,"_ she told herself.

Her night out with Lindsay had been a blur of _Blur_. On the karaoke, that is. During her time at Fenchurch East Kim had been pretty much isolated from her colleagues. This had been mostly of her own doing. She knew she didn't fit in and had always kept her distance. Plus, getting mixed up with Keats hadn't exactly been conducive to making friends at the station. But also, here colleagues had been pretty much paired off – between Gene and Alex and Malcolm and Susannah, Kim was often left alone.

Since Keats's hold over her had been broken things had changed. She'd bonded closely with Simon, thinking of him almost like the big brother she never had. Now she was branching out and making other friends. Lindsay was bright, bubbly and fun - three of the qualities that Kim needed to give her a break from Simon's_ Jumper of Misery_ and Gene's broken hearted moping. There had been a lot of singing, hours of chatter and a lot – a _lot _– of unwise alcoholic cocktails with names that Kim wasn't even sober enough to say now.

She tiptoed through the lounge, bypassing Gene on the couch and slipped into Simon's room.

There were fifteen, maybe twenty seconds before Gene was awoken by a terrible, ear-slipping shriek. He tumbled from the couch, stumbled to the wall, flicked on the light and reached for his gun. Before he had a chance to find it, Simon came tumbling out of the bedroom, looking an absolute fright.

"Bloody hell, Shoebury," Gene cried, "what the hell's going on? I heard a woman screaming."

Simon turned to him, aghast.

"That wasn't a woman," he cried, "that was _me!"_

An embarrassed Kim came rushing out after him, her top half-off and her trousers unfastened, one hand holding them up around her waist.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" she cried, "I thought you were on the floor!"

"I didn't think you were coming back tonight!" cried Simon, "it got so late and there was no sign of you so I thought it was safe to get in the bed!"

"I'm sorry!" Kim cried again, "Lindsay copped off so I came home!"

Gene glanced from one to the other.

"Shoebury, yer chest is out again," he commented.

"Shit," mumbled Simon, running back into the bedroom to get some clothes.

Kim looked at Gene apologetically.

"Sorry, Guv," she said awkwardly.

Gene looked at her, torn between being her boss and being her nosy flatmate.

"You going to make it in on time tomorrow?" he asked.

"Of course," Kim nodded nervously.

Gene hesitated.

"Have a good night, then?"

"Yes, sir," Kim frowned.

Gene nodded slowly.

"What d'you sing? Have they got anything new?"

"Uh, yes," Kim felt a little awkward, "a couple of new ones."

"Got any Christmas songs up yet?"

"A few."

Simon came blustering back out, pulling a garment over his head.

"Christ, it's a bit late for _Noel's House Party_ isn't it?" Gene commented.

Simon scowled.

"I'm burning this jumper in the morning," he decided.

Gene rubbed his eyes and sank to the couch.

"I think," he said, "after a shock like this, we could all do with a generous measure of scotch."

"You think that's a good idea at three in the morning?" cried Simon.

"Uh, it's half four actually," Kim said sheepishly.

"Well I don't bloody know," cried Simon, "the time's always eleven eighty four for me!"

"Eleven eighty four?" Gene asked incredulously, "you in some alternate time frame to the rest of us, Simon? Hundred-minute hours?"

Simon blushed.

"It's too late for this," he snapped, "I wasn't concentrating, that's all."

"So it wouldn't have anything to do with the half a flask of scotch that went mysteriously missing while I was enjoying some quality time with yer lavatory then?" Gene asked.

Simon blushed even harder.

"Must have evaporated with all the hot air you've been breathing around here," he mumbled.

"Oi!" Kim literally stepped between them, "That's enough! How many rows is that you two have had in the last week now?"

Gene and Simon shot each other a glare, then both stood down from their angered stance. Gene cleared his throat.

"Yeah, well," he straightened the shirt he'd been sleeping in., "maybe there is a bit too much testosterone flying around here."

"Well it's a good thing I'm here to counteract it a bit," said Kim.

"Counteract it? It was _you_ I was_ talking_ about!"

"Bloody charming!" Kim cried, her hands thrown in the air in horror.

Gene looked down.

"_Trousers,_ Stringer," he said.

"What- _oh,"_ Kim realised she'd let then drop to the ground, hastily pulled them up and made a fast exit, stage right, leaving Gene and Simon to cool their tempers.

Simon didn't know what the matter was with him. He wasn't an angry man by nature, but something was bringing out the worst in him. Was it this world? Knowing he didn't even have a life any more? Maybe it was missing Robin so very much? Whatever it was, he knew he needed to cool it.

He missed Alex too. Maybe not to the degree Gene missed her, or that _he_ missed _Robin_, but they'd quickly become good friends and her presence was needed to balance things out. He sank onto the couch, put his head in his hands and breathed out slowly. He felt Gene drop hard onto the space beside him and heard him give a frustrated groan. There was an awkward silence, then finally Gene spoke,

"You going to go back to sleep tonight, Shoebury?"

Simon rubbed his forehead and turned to face him.

"Probably not," he sighed.

Gene breathed out noisily.

"Nope. Me neither," he said. There was a pause before he continued, a little hesitantly. "You know, my head's been stuck on yer garlic bread demonstration."

Simon looked at him curiously.

"Yeah?"

Gene nodded.

"Makes a hell of a lot of sense," he sighed.

Simon nodded back.

"I thought so too."

"The question is," Gene continued, "how do we swap dips? I mean, _Alexes?"_

Simon shook his head.

"I've been trying to think, Gene," he said, "I can't get my head around the next step." He hung his head a little. "Sorry."

"It's not your problem," said Gene, "didn't mean to put pressure on you. Just taking advantage of having a one-man science fiction encyclopaedia on the team." He rummaged around in a pile of clothes and pulled out a near-full bottle of scotch.

"Because_ that's_ what we need," Simon cried, "more alcohol!"

"Shut it and get glasses," said Gene, "and get Kim too." He noticed Simon looking at him a little curiously. "I think we need to bring her on board here."

"Why?"

"If something happened to Bolly and she split in two then it was Jimbo's bullet that caused it," said Gene, "no one's had more to do with Keats since his miraculous revival in ninety five than she has."

"I don't think Keats is her favourite topic," Simon said cautiously.

"Is he anyone's?" cried Gene, "come off it, Simon, he pulled down me world, shagged Kim's brains out and tried to throw you off a roof. Before grappling with yer nips, that is."

"He did _not…"_ Simon began but Gene held his hand up to silence him.

"Just get Metal Mickey and something for me to unload my bottle into." He could see Simon trying to think of a wise crack and got there first. "And no, I do not mean I am going to take a leak."

As he watched Simon skulking away to follow his orders, Gene opened the bottle, took a long swig and screwed the cap back on. _Half past bloody four._ There were many things he'd rather be doing at half past bloody four, but most of them were activities he needed Alex back for, so in the absence of her he decided working on a plan to bring her home would have to do.

It could only have been a couple of minutes before he heard a tirade of swearing and the occasional _"Get your geeky hands off me"_ followed by the appearance of a rather unkempt Kim who'd had all of one minute of sleep, her energy wiped out from the many units of alcohol she'd put away in the karaoke bar. She glared at Gene.

"You might be my boss but you are the _worst flatmate ever,"_ she declared, "getting me up to talk about…" she glanced at Simon, "well, I wasn't listening _what_ you wanted to talk about, except that it involved garlic bread… when all I want to do is to sleep off as much as I can of the small brewery I have consumed tonight over the next three hours before I down my weight in Alka-Seltzer and roll into the office pretending that I haven't got a hangover."

Gene ignored her rant, reached for one of the three glasses that Simon was carrying in his spare hand and poured her a large measure.

"Sit down Kim, we need yer expertise."

"For what, learning a new pouring technique?" she asked, flopping on the couch with all the good humour of Simon in his jumper.

He handed her the glass and took the other two from Simon.

"You'll be learning a new job-hunting technique in a minute," he warned her. He raised an eyebrow at Simon. "How many glasses is that, _Mister Tee-Total Shoebury-Thomas?"_

Simon considered letting him have it, but the usage of his full new name plus the desperate situation led him to take a more lenient approach to Gene, just this once.

"Just pour me some of that and ignore me when I choke on it, OK?" he said.

Gene did as Simon asked and left it at that. No one was behaving as they usually would and desperate times called for desperate measures. Or, in this case, _alcoholic _measures.

Kim stared at her glass.

"Not sure this is going to sit very well with the eight pints of lager," she said, "or those four blue things I had that smelt like vomit."

"Saves time for the morning after the night before," Gene told her, "Right, now, if we've got the small talk out the way –"

"Don't mention small talk," interrupted Simon.

"Wasn't that a game show hosted by Ronnie Corbett?" frowned Kim.

"_Listen,"_ Gene interrupted crossly. This time, he received silence. _"Thank_ you." He took a deep breath. "Right, Stringer, listen up. Put yer brain back in because Shoebury's done a bit of sci-fi and sussed the Alex situation."

"Well, I don't know if I've _sussed it_... exactly…" Simon felt himself blushing a little, although he wasn't sure why.

"This is the way he explained it, except he had more bread and dips in his version," Gene carried on, "Bols… she wanted to go back to her daughter but she wanted to stay here too. It was like trying to get Simon to choose between going to an X-Files convention or being in the audience for the shooting of Red Dwarf." He instantly regretted that comparison as he watched Simon's head starting to tick over that very dilemma. "Stop it, Shoebury," he scolded.

Simon looked a little embarrassed.

"Sorry, Guv," he said.

Gene sighed.

"He thinks Alex… 'er soul, or whatever makes her who she is, split in two. Half stayed here, half went back." He looked away. "Something happened in the hospital, Kim. Didn't tell you about this. After you went out the window chasing Keats I saw Alex on the television. She had a heart attack and doctors swarmed round. They brought her back… _my _Alex came back too. Almost at the same moment, their hearts both started to beat. She wanted to have her cake and eat it too."

Kim's ears pricked up.

"Cake?" she repeated. That sounded good. She was awash with alcohol and some food was just the ticket.

Gene ignored her.

"Simon thinks half of her took the memories from her old life back in two thousand and bollocks," he continued, "and the other half got everything from here." He put his hand to his head and brought his glass to his lips. "Except they've gone the wrong way round."

For the first time, Kim started to seem interested. A look of horror crossed her face.

"Shit," she whispered slowly, "that actually makes some sense."

"I knew Shoebury would be good for something one day," said Gene, glancing at Simon to see what kind of a reaction his taunt had provoked, but Simon was too busy trying to approach the scotch without gagging at the smell. He rolled his eyes. "You're as soft as a diarrheic dog's doings," he scowled.

Kim glanced from one to the other, the theory still ringing in her mind.

"If that's true about Alex then what the hell are you going to do?" she asked.

Simon noticed Gene's eyes on him.

"I hope you're not expecting _me_ to do your dirty work!" he cried.

"What dirty work?" frowned Kim.

"Go on, Gene – tell her!"

"Tell me what?"

Gene cleared his throat. He didn't like asking this but anything that could bring his Bolly back was worth a try.

"Thing is, Stringer," he began, "it was Keats who fired the bullet. He was the one who set off whatever chain of weird, Simon-esque events sent_ my_ Alex to some other place and brought me back _Vintage Bolly, circa nineteen eighty one_."

Kim stared at him cluelessly for several moments, until the truth began to dawn on her like a dark raincloud floating over her head.

"Oh, _no," _she began, "No, no no…"

"You've spent a lot of time with him," Simon began gently.

"Not by choice!" she cried.

"Even so…"

"_You're_ the one he's followed through three time zones!" Kim countered.

"Kim," Gene began firmly, "We know you don't want to think about him. We know what he did, and we know you want to forget he ever existed – we _all_ want that. But if he had anything to do with sending Bolly off in different directions you might be the one who can help bring 'er back."

"You don't even know if he had anything to do with it," Kim told him, "He fired those shots randomly. Got me in the shoulder, remember?" She reached up to touch the area where the scar still hurt.

Gene looked down a little.

"Maybe he had nothing to do with her being split and scattered," he said, "or maybe he worked his way through Alex's memories and set them into two neat and tidy piles…"

"That does sound like something he would do," Simon pointed out.

"…But it's one of the few leads we've got. Keats fired the gun – it's something we've got to look at."

Kim breathed in deeply, then took a large mouthful of scotch, It did little to calm her nerves.

"_Fuck,"_ she whispered, closing her eyes.

"Are you OK, Kim?" Simon asked softly.

Kim looked at him crossly.

"The one night I'd managed to forget him," she said quietly, "the one night he had finally gone from my head."

Simon and Gene exchanged a glance. Both started to feel guilt creeping in, even though they knew they had to at least cover the angle.

"Sorry," Gene said awkwardly. He stood up and began to pace a little. He did his best thinking while he was on the move. Sitting still made him anxious if he was doing it for any length of time. And, as he recalled, desperate times called for desperate measures. "Right," he began, louder and more determinedly, "Kim, Simon, cancel all appointments with the land of nod."

Simon groaned.

"Gene, it looks suspiciously like you're getting dressed," he commented as Gene pulled his jacket over his crumpled shirt.

"Too right I am," Gene said grimly, "not going out in that weather with me shirt sleeves. I'll turn into a bloody ice sculpture. Just a very rugged and 'andsome one."

Simon groaned and put his head in his hands.

"We're not going to CID are we?" he asked pathetically.

"But we've all been drinking!" Kim protested.

"Speak for yourself!" cried Simon.

"Oh come off it, Shoebury, just because you didn't manage to drink anything from yer glass doesn't mean you can't strip paint with yer breath from what you pilfered from my flask earlier," said Gene, "and anyway, the walk will do us good. It's only down the street."

"In what way will it do us _good?"_ cried Simon.

"It'll give me chance to pick up a kebab on the way," Gene said matter-of-factly.

Kim raised an eyebrow.

"Kebabs?" she asked. She hesitated. "Give me five minutes," she said, and rushed off to get dressed.

Simon put his head in his hands. There was no getting out of this one.

"At least promise me one thing, Gene," he said.

"What's that?"

"Don't try using the white board," Simon advised, "I've seen your handwriting after you've knocked a few back and it looks like what you did in my bin this morning."

"Relax, Shoebury, I will not be drunk in charge of a board marker," said Gene.

He slipped on his shoes and waited for the other to join him. It might have been a ridiculous hour in the morning but he knew they had to strike while the iron was hot, and before the reset Alex had a chance to do any further damage to his world.

As he checked his watch and tapped his foot impatiently there was something strange, a little twinkle from above him catching his eye. Something on the ceiling. He glanced up but whatever it was had gone now. He shook his head and tried to push away the memory. A shiver crept down his spine as he thought about it, but he'd have to come back to that some other time. For now the only things that mattered were working out what happened to Alex and composing a plan to get her back. Finally things were moving and, with Simon and Kim by his side, this was as close as he'd come to believing Bolly would ever be back by his side from the moment she'd air quoted his name.


	36. Chapter 18, 2011: Ridicolosamente

_**A/N: 2 chapters up today because I'm ahead again!**_

**Chapter Eighteen: 2011**

Alex looked nervously out of the window and tried to slide down as low as she could in the passenger seat of Robin's car.

"Relax, Alex, no one knows you here," she muttered to herself, although her hushed confidence boosters did little to calm her nerves. She tapped her fingers on her leg, waiting anxiously for Robin to return. "Why did I want this?" she muttered, "why did I insist on this? That bloody hairdye is going to be the end of my charade." Her stomach made an evil noise. "Oh shut up, you got a decent breakfast, didn't you?" she snapped at it and wished she'd had time for one last trip to the lavatory before they'd left Simon's flat.

Suddenly the door opened and Robin threw himself into the seat, handing Alex a package as he did so.

"There," he smiled, "One hair streaking kit, ready and waiting to brighten your barnet."

Alex smiled gratefully and popped the bag on the floor beside her feet.

"Damn," she mumbled.

"What's wrong?" asked Robin.

Alex blushed a little.

"I just realised I'm still wearing my slippers," she said.

Robin started the car.

"Sorry, Alex, Simon didn't have any shoes in your size," he teased.

She watched as he pulled on his seatbelt and began to pull out of the car park.

"Where are we going first?" she asked.

Robin glanced at the map unfolded on his dashboard.

"The closest one is_ Fenchurch Fine Art Tattoos,"_ he said, "we'll start with that one and go round in a circular formation here, here, here and here."

Alex sighed. This was beginning to sound like an Olympic skating event.

~x~

"This is it," Robin stared nervously out of the window as he pulled up beside a large shop front with a skull painted across the outside of the door. He swallowed hard. His nerves were starting to increase. He glanced at Alex. "Are you ready?"

Alex hesitated for a second, then nodded.

"As I'll ever be," she said.

Together they stepped out of the car and tiptoed to the doorway as though scared of waking a sleeping tattooist. Finally Robin glanced back at her.

"You stay here," he said, "If she's in there I'll call for you."

Alex looked a little hesitant but agreed.

"OK," she said quietly.

Slowly, Robin opened the door and stepped inside. As soon as he passed through the door it was like walking into another world. Loud, psychedelic music blasted from the back of the building while every inch of wall-space was adorned with art, from the old-skool, traditional tattoo fare to contemporary designs, and everything in between. He gave an audible gasp as he stepped a little toward the wall, staring at the colours and the lines, the bold and the beautiful. Although he'd never had a tattoo it was a topic that had secretly fascinated him for many years and, faced with the wealth of imagery on the wall, was a subject he felt compelled to look into more thoroughly one day.

"Can I help you, mate?"

A deep, booming voice came from behind Robin, making him jump out of his skin. He turned around to see a large gentleman with a torn vest and rippling muscles, covered with artwork that had built up on his skin over many years. His head was shaven and his ears contained tunnels that were each the size of a small country, his piercings stretched so wide that Robin could practically see eternity through the gap in his appendage.

He coughed a little and tried not to squeak out a reply.

"Uh…" he began, then cursed silently. The tattooing was taking place in a hidden room, behind the reception area. Well, what had he expected? Bare flesh as far as the eye could see? Victims of the needle coming under scrutiny from passers by asking dumb questions like "_Does it hurt?"_ He gulped. "Uh, I'm looking for a tattooist," he said.

"Strangely, you've come to the right place," said the man, "what d'you want? Got a design in mind yet?"

"Uh…" Robin laughed anxiously, "I don't mean I want a tattoo, I mean I want an actual _tattooist,"_ he said.

"This isn't a dating agency," the man told him, "get the hell out of my shop."

"No! No, wait," Robin flustered, "do you have any female tattooists?"

"Like I said, this isn't a dating agency!" the man snapped, "Hop it!"

Robin closed his eyes. This wasn't going according to plan.

"I'm looking for a friend of mine," he said, "she's a tattooist."

The man stared at him. He gave a deep sigh.

"Look, mate, no women here. Just me, Dave and Adrian. Now piss off before I etch a two fingered salute on your back!"

Robin gulped and edged to the doorway.

"Nice meeting you," he squeaked and scarpered.

~x~

Alex was still waiting patiently outside of the door. She looked a little alarmed as he fled.

"Well?" she cried, following him back to the car.

She caught up with him as he fell against the door, panting a little. He looked at her, shaken.

"Well, she's not in _there,_ that's for certain," he mumbled. He took a deep breath, "I think this is going to be harder than I thought."

They climbed into the car and took a ten minute drive to the next tattooist. Alex was a little concerned by Robin's reaction to their first stop. All she'd managed to get out of him was something about scary things in ears and to leave it at that. They arrived at the second tattoo studio and both walked to the doorway.

"Stay out here again," Robin told Alex, "hopefully this one will be a little more friendly."

He opened the door of the shop and stepped nervously inside. This time, instead of a burly tattooist accosting him there was a fairly young, punky lady at the desk with so many holes in her ears she could practically strain tea through them. He approached her a little nervously and smiled

"Hi there," he said.

"Hi," she smiled back, running her fingers through the myriad colours in her hair, "what can I do for you?"

"I'm looking for a friend of mine," he said, "she's a tattooist."

"She works here?" the woman frowned.

"She… might do," Robin felt a little flustered, "Uh, look, I'll explain what she looks like and maybe you can tell me if she sounds familiar. She's got some piercings…"

"That could be any of them," the girl said blankly.

"And some tattoos…"

"Again, that could be any of them," The woman told him.

"Her hair looked a bit punky…"

The woman frowned.

"You're not getting the hint here, are you?" she asked, "they're tattooists! They tend to have those traits!" she paused, "what's her name?"

Robin closed his eyes. Why was this so bloody hard?

"Look," he said quietly, "I don't _know_ her name. She changed it… I only know her old name. Can you… can you just do me a favour? One little favour and I'll go."

The woman sighed deeply.

"Alright," she said, "what?"

Robin took a deep breath.

"Can you go and ask the tattooists if they'd be willing to tattoo my police dogs?"

~x~

Alex looked on in shock as a small, punky lady pushed Robin out of the door.

"_And stay out!"_ she cried, thrusting him onto the pavement.

"Robin!" cried Alex. She stooped over him in alarm and slowly helped him upright. He blushed at the shame of being thrown out by a girl and cleared his throat.

"I, uh, don't think she was there either," he said.

"This tattoo business looks like a more dangerous career to get into than the force," Alex observed.

They trailed back dejectedly to the car and studied the map again.

"Right," said Robin, "this one next." He sighed. "I should have brought my baton. Would have been much safer."

~x~

The next tattoo studio Robin arrived at looked a little more understated on the outside. Inside, however, told a different story as giant polystyrene appendages stood in every corner with oversized jewellery punched through them.

Robin gulped at one particular piece; a large ear that loomed by his side. It brought to his mind a painting he'd studied at school. He couldn't remember the name of it, nor the painter, but he did recall it was a depiction of hell in which one unfortunate man had been condemned to be squashed eternally by very large ears.

"Good morning sir, can I help you?"

The woman at the counter seemed pleasant enough; red hair, cute glasses, a line of artwork creeping up each arm.

Robin smiled.

"Hi there," he said, ignoring the giant ear beside him, "I was wondering if you could go and ask your tattooists a question."

The woman hesitated.

"What kind of a question?" she asked.

Robin took a deep breath.

"Would you mind seeing if they could see their way clear to tattooing my police dogs?" he asked.

The expression of the woman grew dark and annoyed. She looked over her shoulder and called;

"_Luke!_ There's a nutter out here!"

Robin swallowed hard as a man with an extraordinary amount of facial hair stepped out from behind her, cracked his knuckles and stepped in his direction.

Robin laughed guiltily and backed away to the door.

"I'll, uh... take that as a no then," he squeaked.

~xXx~

It was nearing one in the afternoon and the two weary figures were beginning to lose hope. Robin had been thrown out by many, _many_ burly tattooists and sparky piercers over the course of the last few hours. They had visited ten tattoo studios and even two piercing places and so far, no dice.

"It's hopeless," Alex sighed, throwing the map in the air.

"Don't say that," Robin tried to buoy her spirits, "we still have three to go."

He lifted the map from the floor and plotted the course of the next shop into his satnav, but inside he felt his own hope fading fast. Just a few short hours ago they were so full of excitement and certainty that Kim would be around the corner. Even though they had tried to keep their feet on the ground they'd both felt it – the hope and anticipation. Now it seemed as though those possibilities were dropping away with every shop that led to a dead end.

They drove in silence to the next place and pulled up outside. Robin glanced at Alex but her face was downcast.

"Are you ready?" he asked.

Alex hesitated, then looked at him.

"Maybe we should just go back," she said quietly.

"Go back? Alex…" Robin sighed, "We've got three more to go. We can't stop here. If we left out these last three then we'd always be wondering. At _least _let's check them out. Then, if she's not there, we'll go back to Simon's and start thinking again."

Alex breathed in deeply. She wished she had the same sense of hope that Robin was trying to cling to but her heart was sinking ever deeper with every moment that passed. Eventually though she unfastened her seat belt and climbed out of the car.

"Alright," she said, "three more. Then we'll go back."

Robin nodded and stepped out of his side, marched to the shop door, glanced at Alex with a firm nod entered the shop, leaving Alex to wait outside the doorway.

"Forget batons, I need bloody riot gear," he commented.

He looked for the reception desk and found a man standing there with spiked hair, full tattooed sleeves and a couple of rings through one side of his nose. He looked at Robin and asked,

"What can I do for you mate?"

Robin drew in a deep breath. He was starting to tire of this. He thought about just slinging himself onto the pavement to save the guy the trouble but he'd already gone to the bother of driving there, he might as well go the whole way.

"Uh, well," he began, hovering by the door.

"I won't bite you know," the man said, wondering why Robin looked for all the world as though he was about to make a speedy getaway.

Robin cleared his throat.

"I was wondering if you have any female tattooists," he said.

"Yeah, we do," he said, "Do you want an appointment?"

"Well, no," Robin began. He paused. "I was just wondering whether they would… would tattoo my police dogs?"

He paused, braced himself and waited for the inevitable violence, but it didn't come. The man stared at him strangely.

"You've _got_ to be fucking kidding me," he said.

Robin cringed.

"Don't tell me," he began, "it's time for me to get the hell out of your shop."

But the man was busy shaking his head and wandering back into the tattooing studio in the back of the shop.

"_Hey, guys, you're not going to believe this,"_ Robin heard him say.

"Great," mumbled Robin, "now I'm going to have a whole _bunch_ of tattooists throwing me out.

"…somebody's actually used that dog line!" the man continued.

That stopped Robin in his tracks. In fact, it made the world stop spinning, just for a moment.

"What?" he whispered.

"_Someone actually asked about the police dog thing!"_ the man called into the back room, _"I thought it was a bloody wind up! Did you put him up to it Alex? Hey, Alex…"_

"_Alex?"_ Robin repeated. He peered out of the window in the shop door at Alex standing outside. Her attention was caught by the look on Robin's face. Something was going on and that put her on alert.

Robin turned back to see the man step back.

"Yeah, he's out here!" he was saying, "Come and see for yourself!"

There were footsteps and a mumble of accusation about someone winding her up before a woman, dressed in black, stepped out of the back room and into the light. There was a great thumping in Robin's chest. It took him some time to work out it was coming from his heart.

"Fucking hell," he breathed.

The woman stopped in her tracks as she saw him.

"_Shit,"_ she whispered, her hands clasping to her mouth involuntarily.

"You know this guy, Alex?" the man asked.

Robin stared at her incredulously.

"'_Alex'?"_ he repeated.

"Robin?"

Robin swallowed.

"_Kim."_

Kim swallowed. She glanced at the man and said a little nervously,

"Hey, can you go tell my client I'll be back in five to finish up the shading on that?"

"Sure," said the man, "don't go tattooing any police dogs while you're out here though!"

Robin felt his legs starting to tremble as Kim began to walk towards him. He offered up a smile that was shaky and nervous.

"Hello, Kim," he whispered.

Kim looked around anxiously to make sure no one was there to hear and hissed,

"Robin, what the hell are you doing here?"

"We've spent all day trying to find you," he said quietly.

"I told you why I had to stay hidden," Kim hissed, "not that it's not nice to see you but… Jesus, Robin! I'm at _work!_ You've got to go, And you can't call me Kim, I changed my name a _long_ time ago."

"I know," Robin whispered. He chewed on his lip, "but… the thing is, we need your help."

"I am _not_ tattooing any police dogs," Kim warned.

Robin shook his head.

"There's someone here who needs you," he whispered, "…there's someone I think you need to see."

He stared at her nervously as she looked on expectantly, opened the door and stepped back as her apparent namesake walked shyly through the door. Alex hung her head a little, feeling awkward about intruding on Kim's life after she'd been living this way for so long. She gave her a nervous smile.

"Hello, Kim," she said quietly.

At first, Kim couldn't quite believe her eyes. It took her a second to trust that what she was seeing was real and not a mirage, then as soon as the reality sank in she found herself gasping in shock and blessed familiarity.

"_Alex?" _she breathed. She felt her legs shaking beneath her and before she could work out what was going on she found herself running, racing towards Alex as fast as her heavy black boots would allow and almost knocked the frail woman flying with an embrace that said everything words could never hope to- the familiarity, the yearning to reach out and touch those days gone by, the connecting to a world she had left so long ago but never got out of her system. Her arms squeezed Alex tightly and she felt her returning the hug. She heard one quiet sob from Alex as the relief of finally finding Kim washed over her.

It felt as though their embrace lasted for an eternity. When they finally pulled away from each other Kim noticed the tears in Alex's eyes.

"Alex" she whispered, "what's wrong? What's…" she glanced back at Robin, "What's happened? Why are you both here?"

Alex and Robin exchanged a glance.

"You might want to finish up on that shading first," Robin said awkwardly, "because this could take some time. We need your help. Desperately."

Kim felt her heartbeat thumping inside of her chest. That anxiety, anticipation, a sense of something about to begin. It was a feeling she hadn't really known since the day she left Gene's world. She breathed in slowly and nodded.

"Give me five minutes," she whispered, "and I will be right here." She looked at Alex. "I'll be right here for you. OK?"

Alex nodded silently, her smile strained by tears. They watched as Kim hurried into the back once more and Robin reached out to squeeze Alex's hand. They looked at each other and a silence exchange passed between them. Neither could believe they'd finally come upon the woman they had been seeking but at the same time they couldn't help but feel that the hard part was still to come. Explaining Alex's situation was going to be difficult, emotional and would lead onto answers that she could never be truly certain she was ready to know.

"Everything will be alright," Robin whispered as he looked at Alex.

Alex could only pray that he was right.

~xXx~

_**A/N: This chapter is dedicated to all the wonderful vibrant, eclectic characters that I knew during the phase of my life spent designing tattoos, gaining art and jewellery all over my body and hanging around with a fantastic, funny and thriving group of tattooists, piercers and artists. That crew may all have been disbanded now, but they'll always be in my memory and heart.**_


	37. Chapter 18, 1995: Scordatura

_**A/N: The second of 2 chapters this morning**_

**Chapter Eighteen: 1995**

"How the hell did I end up here?" Simon sighed as he sat on a desk watching Gene breaking all his promises about not trying to use the white board.

"Right," Gene wrote sloppily across the blank, white space, his fingers not quite doing what his brain was telling them to do, "Keats shot 'er, scarpered up onto the roof and had a go at the high dive."

Simon folded his arms.

"You're about to bring up my nipples again, aren't you?" he mumbled crossly.

Gene ignored that.

"We've got three problems," he continued, "not including the fact that Shoebury is still wearing that bloody jumper." He scribbled on the board, "Number one, where's _our _Alex? Number two, what do we do with Little Miss Amnesiac, and number three, where's Jimbo and what's he got to do with her personality transplant?"

"Technically that's four problems, sir," Kim piped up. She became instantly aware of a cross Gene glaring at her and coughed. "Sorry, sir… I don't know why I said that," she mumbled.

Gene turned his glare away from her and looked back at the board.

"So," he began, then gave a sigh. Alex was much better at the whole whiteboard _thing_. She had better handwriting for a start, and usually wasn't pissed in charge of a whiteboard marker. He scratched his head. "The Alex _we _know is definitely not here. She could be alive and wandering around in some twenty first century year. She could still be in a coma, waiting to wake up. She could," he trailed off and took a deep breath. It wasn't something he wanted to consider but it was a possibility, "…she might not have made it. She could be lost forever."

"Don't think like that, Gene," Simon said quietly.

Gene moved onto the second problem.

"And Alex," he began, "the _other _Alex. She thinks she'd _just_ been shot by that greasy-haired lummox Layton, and has just arrived here. She doesn't know anything about me or you or her life here. She's dangerous and volatile. Could do anything. Doesn't think this is '_real'."_ He even used her air-quotes to mock the sentiment.

"We need to find her," said Kim, "explain to her."

"Yeah well, that's easier said than done," Gene told her, "for one thing, she hates my guts."

"Oh, we've all been there…" Kim said casually before realising she'd quite possibly talked herself out of a job, slammed her hand over her mouth and tried to backtrack. "I mean, err…"

"She means, it takes a while to get to know you, that's all," Simon came to her rescue.

Gene didn't seem impressed.

"_You_ didn't help yerself by nodding when she said you'd all been there, Shoebury!" Gene scolded.

Simon looked a little flustered.

"I'm sorry," he said, "I can't bloody concentrate! What is it now? Half past five? Six o clock?" He rubbed his stomach. "And I'm bloody starving. Can't we get something to eat before we do this?"

"You could have 'ad a kebab," Gene reminded him.

"I refuse to eat anything that looks like I've already thrown it up first," Simon said crossly, "besides, it's not like anyone here took the last of my bloody pizza, is it…?"

Gene looked away, ignoring that remark and turned his attention back to the board.

"Metal Mickey is right though," he said, "we have to find her pronto-tonto and explain to her what we think has happened."

"If we tell her we'll help her get home then she'll be more likely to work with us instead of throwing us out," Simon suggested.

"Well,_ try_ to help her get home," Kim pointed out.

Gene nodded.

"Third thing on the list – Jimbo." He paused. It wasn't a subject any of them wanted to think about but it had to be done. "Is he responsible for more than a bullet?"

Silence descended. No one really knew what to say. No one knew where they even stood on that subject.

"It's possible," Simon said quietly, "there's nothing I wouldn't put past him."

"I don't know," Kim shook her head, "he might have been the one who fired the gun but why would he do _that?_ And _how?_ I know he's not… well, not quite as human as _we_ are but it's not like he's slicing up souls left, right and centre is it? I just think if he was going to do anything to Alex he'd have taken her soul right away, as soon as she was shot."

The others stared at her. She made a lot of sense.

"But if he wasn't responsible then we still are no closer to finding out what happened or how to get her back," Simon pointed out.

"Still something to bear in mind though," Gene mumbled. He began to wonder if he was a little too focused on blaming Keats for everything that went wrong in his world. True, most of the time he was to blame but that wasn't always the case. If Keats wasn't behind Alex's situation then he might be missing the bigger picture or a possible solution. It was something to remember.

"So where do we start?" Kim asked.

Gene looked down. He wasn't looking forward to part one of the plan.

"We've got to find Alex," he said, "and talk her round. Try to get some sense into that brain. And it's not going to be easy."

"Maybe one of _us _should go," said Simon, "she's already thrown you out and threatened you. If you turn up on her doorstep she could start throwing things."

"Or call the police," said Kim.

"Or handcuff you to the drain pipe."

"Or shove vegetables up your –"

"I think that's enough possibilities, thank you," Gene said crossly. "Now, I understand what you're saying but this is a job for the Gene Genie and his silver tongue."

"That's the problem," Simon commented, "Alex already knows where you want to stick your silver tongue and that's why she's not going to let you anywhere near."

Gene scowled at Simon.

"Enough lip from you, Noel Edmonds," he said.

"We should_ all_ go," Kim said decisively. Gene looked at her with interest. Her words had been firm and clear. It wasn't like her to take such a leading role. "That way you've got back up and she can see you're not trying to get in her pants this time."

"Gene Hunt does not try to get in anybody's pants," Gene pointed out, "the pants usually allow Gene Hunt free access."

"Can we _please_ go and get some breakfast first?" Simon whined.

"And some alternative clothing for you," Kim pointed out.

"And a bonfire for this jumper," Simon concluded.

Gene rubbed his face roughly. Between Simon and Kim it was like trying to conduct a lesson with a bunch of six year olds.

"If it means you'll all be presentable, full and obedient by eight o' clock, standing outside Drake's flat then you can do all three," he said.

"Great," sighed Simon. He had his mind on a big, greasy fry-up from the canteen.

"See you there at eight," said Kim, sliding off the desk and following Simon from the room.

Left alone with his thoughts and his white board, Gene felt himself giving a hefty sigh. In a way it was almost more daunting that they had a plan of action. Now they had a plan there was a chance it could fail. When they were still stumbling blindly without a clue it was a lot less frightening.

"Bolly," he mumbled, "where the bloody hell have you gone?"

~xXx~

Simon shuddered as he waited just outside of Alex's flat. The winter was biting hard and all the Noel Edmonds jumpers in the world couldn't keep the cold out. He gave Kim a little wave as he saw her approaching and shoved his hands deep into his pockets.

"Hey," Kim looked every bit as cold as Simon felt, "how was breakfast?"

Simon tried to ignore the rabid indigestion the fry-up had given him.

"Let's just say it wasn't a patch on Robin's cooking," he said, "what have you been doing for the last couple of hours?"

"Brewing up a lovely hangover," Kim said, one hand reaching to her forehead.

"Well, let's get this over with and we might be snoring by midday," Simon said hopefully.

"No, we won't," groaned Kim, slumping against a wall, "We'll be chasing Keats up a building or through a car park, or trying to get Alex in a straitjacket, or concocting more plans on a whiteboard. Any of those things could happen. But sleep's not going to be one of them."

"Your optimism is most welcome," Simon said sarcastically as he parked his backside beside her on the ground.

"Oh right, you've been a barrel of laughs lately, I suppose," Kim commented.

Simon put his hand to his head and sighed.

"Sorry," he mumbled, "I don't know what's wrong with me at the moment. Picked up a temper from somewhere."

"Anything you want to talk about?" asked Kim.

"Not particularly," Simon sighed. He shuddered again. "So bloody freezing," he mumbled, "when we skipped a few weeks couldn't we have skipped all the way to June or something?"

"You look frozen," Kim commented, "how long have you been here?"

"Ages," said Simon.

"But it's not even quite eight yet," said Kim, " why did you get here so early?"

"Kim, it's always eleven forty eight for me," cried Simon, "These days I tend to be early or late for most things!"

"Sorry," said Kim. She scratched her head. "If your watch stopped when you died then how come Hunt and the others can all tell the time?"

"Because they're learnt all about the big hand and the little hand?" suggested Simon. Kim gave him a withering glance. "Sorry," he mumbled, "I think it's to do with whether or not you're dead when you arrive. If you die instantly and come here – you get a free working watch. If you die after you've arrived – time be damned." He looked down. Something had been bothering him. "I'd been wondering about that," he said quietly, "about when I died. I know I was already dead when they pulled Robin from the car. I must have still been alive at first though. If I could remember what time I was called to the raid then maybe I could place how long it was before…" he trailed away and shook his head. "Too grim," he mumbled, "don't really want to go there right now."

Kim looked at him sympathetically. She wished there was something she could say but it wasn't exactly a regular topic of conversation.

"Is that what's been bothering you?" she asked.

Simon shook his head.

"Not really," he sighed. His head began to hurt from thinking too much. He looked down. "I miss Robin," he said.

Kim felt a little uncomfortable. She wasn't sure how to help Simon feel any better.

"I know," she said quietly.

"It's just hard," he said quietly, "not knowing how he is, if he's coping, what he's doing right now, who he has to support him."

Kim nodded slowly.

"I've been working on memorising the letter," she told him, "I read it twice a day. Got the first few sentences almost spot on now."

Simon gave her a grateful smile but it was tinged with sadness.

"Thanks," he whispered. He paused for a moment. "Kim, I… I had a dream yesterday…"

A plodding trail of footsteps stopped Simon mid-sentence and caused them both to look up as Gene headed towards them.

"Blimey, it's a meeting of the national misery front," he commented.

Simon sighed and got to his feet.

"Like _you've _been joy personified," he said.

"I notice you haven't burnt the jumper," Gene said with genuine disappointment.

"The woman in the canteen wouldn't lend me her matches," Simon mumbled, "chucked a colander at my backside and told me to get lost."

Kim stood up and rubbed her hands together, fighting off the cold.

"So are we going to do this then?" she asked.

Gene sniffed a little as the cold air made his nose run, adjusted his gloves and strode to the door.

"Too bloody right we are," he said.

X

A knock on the door. Another. A third, harder and more intense this time.

"Alex?" Gene yelled, "Alex, if you're in there, open up."

He paused to let Simon have a go.

"Alex, it's Simon… I know you don't really _know_ me any more… but we need to talk to you." He paused and glanced at Gene. "I think we know what's happened. We want to try to help you get home."

There was nothing but silence.

"Oh, come on, Drake," Gene tried knocking one last time, "I'm not going to try to hump you this time."

They both glanced at Kim who took a turn.

"Alex, we know where you're from, we know you're lost," she said, "We want you to get home but you're going to have to talk to us."

Still there was no reply. Kim shrugged at Gene and Simon.

"Right," Simon began decisively to Gene, "You're going to have to break the door down."

Gene's eye twitched in confusion.

"Why am I going to have to break the door down?" he asked.

"Because last time_ I_ tried I got a bruised shoulder and a bruised ego," said Simon.

Gene hesitated.

"Or we could use the key," he suggested, pulling it from his pocket.

Simon closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath.

"Lovely, another one to add to my collection of embarrassing moments that will haunt me when I'm trying to sleep at night," he mumbled.

Gene turned the key in the lock and let the door open, peering in a little cautiously. He was half expecting her to fly out and attack him with a hairbrush again but there was no response.

"Alex?" he called, "Come on, Drakey, if you're in we've got some answers for yer."

"I'll check the bedroom," said Simon.

"I'll check the kitchen," said Kim.

Gene took the bathroom, but to his frustration he found nobody there. From the mutters of annoyance he could guess that neither Simon nor Kim had found her either.

"No sign, Guv," Kim said sadly as they gathered back in the lounge.

"Nor in the bedroom," said Simon.

Gene took one last look around. It seemed as though she hadn't been there at all last night.

"Where the bleedin' hell is she then?" he asked, "it's not like she's got anywhere else to go!"

"Maybe she's gone to the station?" suggested Simon.

"I doubt it," said Kim, "I heard the Super yesterday. She went to see him in a state about something. He's barred her from the station."

Gene looked at her, his mouth hanging slightly open.

"And you decided to wait until now to impart this valuable piece of information?" he cried.

Kim looked a little guilty.

"Sorry, Guv," she said quietly, "you weren't really in a fit state to hear about it yesterday and I just forgot until now."

"That'll be the alcohol," mumbled Gene, "you want to lay off that stuff, Stringer."

Kim's mouth fell open in shock at her ironic berating until she realised he was winding her up and she decided to leave it. She gave a sigh and rubbed her aching head.

"So what now?" she asked.

"Now," Gene began, "I think I need to pay a visit to the Super and find out exactly what little miss Amnesia said to him yesterday."

"What about us?" asked Kim.

"I'll go round some of the local places she might have gone to, ask if anyone's seen her," said Simon, "the usual places… _Bask, Latte Land…"_

"Try the local hotels too," said Gene, He pulled his wallet from his pocket, slipped out a photograph and unfolded it carefully. "'Ere. Show them this. See if anyone recognises her."

Simon glanced at him in disbelief. The notion of Gene carrying a photo of Alex around was one that had genuinely surprised him. He took the slightly dog-eared photograph and tucked it carefully into his pocket.

"Sure," he said quietly.

"And go home and get changed," Gene continued, "You shouldn't be seen out in that thing."

Simon scowled.

"And so it goes right back down," he muttered.

"What?"

"My respect for your humanity," said Simon.

Gene ignored that.

"Metal Mickey, you call the hospitals and the funny farm," Gene continued, "if she's been wandering the streets she could have been swept up by the men in white coats."

"Got it," said Kim.

"And take an aspirin," Gene continued, "I can hear that hangover pounding from here."

Kim frowned.

"Fine."

The three figures marched dejectedly from the flat and Gene locked the door behind them, but just as they turned around a glimmer of starlight swept across the sky for just a split second before the clear, frosty December morning returned in its place.

"_What the –"_ Simon gasped a little and glanced at Gene, looking for some kind of reaction or explanation but Gene was concentrating very hard on not looking at him.

"Move," he told them, "we need Alex and we need her faster than Keats can swoop on a dead man."

Simon and Kim looked on, a little anxiously, as Gene hurried away from the flat and set off back to the station. The speed in his step and the look on his face had brought them both an extra sense of concern and neither knew quite how to describe it. They exchanged a look for a moment before deciding to follow his instructions and hurry their search along.

As Simon took to the streets with the photo of Alex he couldn't get that glimmer of starlight out of his mind. What was its significance and why had Gene reacted that way? If it was important then why wasn't he sharing its meaning with him? He just couldn't get it out of his head Just when he thought he finally had a grip on this world something else happened to pull the rug from under his feet. The world just kept on getting stranger and he missed having Alex's friendship to balance things out.

"Come on, Alex," he mumbled to himself, "You've got to be somewhere. Turn up and go home so we can get _our_ Alex back. It looks like we need you – for more reasons than one."


	38. Chapter 19, 2001: Bisbigliando

_**A/N: One more double dose today and then back to single chapters for the end of the week. Thanks so much for your reviews and alerts – it really helps to inspire me and know I'm on the right track!**_

**Chapter 19: 2011**

Alex and Kim looked at each other a little nervously over the table in the café. After the arrival of her unexpected visitors Kim made some excuses, cancelled her afternoon appointments and took them quickly to the café that stood right next door.

"You see all the customers in here," she'd said, "either nervously nursing a cup of tea while they wait for their tattoo or victoriously celebrating with an iced bun after their work is complete."

It was funny, Alex thought to herself, how the young girl she'd known in 1995 now appeared older than she was herself. It was surreal to look at Kim with her long, dark hair, a far cry from the short, blonde crop she'd been used to seeing for the last 6 months in 1995. Then again, she realised Kim was probably finding it strange to look at Alex and see the lifeless, scrawny, ill-looking woman before her after the abundance of life she always had in 1995.

"You took my name," Alex said with a nervous smile.

Kim reddened in the cheeks.

"I hope you don't mind," she said anxiously, "I had to change my name when I woke up to keep me safe from Keats. I chose Alex to keep the memory of your world alive." She smiled. "I took Simon's name too. For a while."

"You did?"

Kim nodded.

"I was Alex Shoebury until I got married," she said, "then I took her name."

Alex felt touched and moved by the gesture. It was something she hadn't been expecting.

"That's nice; just _so _nice," she whispered.

Kim looked at her seriously.

"Why are you here?" she asked, "What's happened?"

Alex swallowed as her mouth grew dry and leaned forward.

"I need your help, Kim," she said quietly, "I'm in trouble."

Immediately Kim felt a shudder travel through her body.

"What kind of trouble?" she asked quietly.

Before Alex had a chance to continue Robin arrived back at the table with a tray of hot drinks.

"Kim, yours is the one with the chip in the rim, Alex, yours is the one with the egg yolk stain on the outside and mine is the one with the fly floating in it."

Alex blanched.

"Such a charming establishment," she said.

Kim looked at Alex as Robin fished the winged intruder from his drink.

"You said you were in trouble?" she prompted her anxiously.

Alex glanced down and nodded. She drew in her breath but had no idea where to start.

"On new year's day," she began, "I woke up from a coma I'd apparently been in for two and a half years. The problem is, I don't remember being shot in two thousand and eight, Kim. I don't remember my _daughter_ or my job or my life here. All I have are my memories of nineteen ninety five and before. All I remember are you and Gene and Simon, and all the people who worked with us. The last thing I remember," she swallowed, the words sticking in her throat, "the last thing I remember is being in your hospital room, and we had watched a tape. That tape had something to do with Jim Keats, now I don't know what, or –" she paused for a moment as she noticed how Kim's face had fallen at the mention of that evil man, "or why we were playing it, but the last memory I have is of being shot. I remember he fired… were there three shots? Four?" She hung her head a little. "His shot sent me back to the body I left behind when I was shot in two thousand and eight, but this isn't where I belong. It's not who I am."

"We think," Robin said quietly, "that perhaps the choice was too hard. She couldn't decide whether to stay in ninety five or come home. We think maybe somehow a part of her split in half, but she's got all the wrong memories.

"I think I was supposed to stay in ninety five," Alex told Kim, "and, perhaps, back in ninety five there is a part of me that's trying to get home too. Trying to get back to her daughter. Just like I'm trying to get back to Gene."

"The thing is," Robin cleared his throat, "you were there at the time. You'll know what happened after Keats shot Alex. Whether she survived. Whether she's in a coma, or still walking around somewhere. You know what happened after her shooting – and we need to know too."

Alex looked at Kim urgently.

"Please," she breathed, "you have to tell me. Did I survive? Do I make it back?" She paused as Kim seemed reluctant to answer, "I just need to know, one way or the other because I can't live forever in this awful state of limbo, Kim, you can see that, can't you?"

Her voice had a hint of desperation that she'd tried so hard to keep to herself. Kim sat up a little straighter and cleared her throat. Her face reflected so many emotions.

"Gosh," she whispered. That wasn't a very Kim-like word but she didn't really know what else to say. The situation was so incredibly surreal. She looked down at the table. "Eight years, I've worked to get that world out of my head. Eight years I've battled with it. Trying to adjust to the real world again. Cope with feeling homesick, even though I was only there such a relatively short time." She gave a tiny smile. "Then, first of all, the day finally arrived to give Robin his letter," she looked up at Alex with as tiny smile of genuine fondness and warmth. "And now, here you are." She felt two pairs of eyes watching her expectantly, waiting for the answers they were seeking. Kim began to feel nervous. She breathed in deeply and stared at her hands. "You want to know about what happened after you were shot, of course you do," she said. Her eyes returned to Alex. There was a desperate need to know on her face. "I don't think I'm going to have all the answers you're looking for."

"Why?" whispered Alex, "did you come home too?"

Kim shook her head.

"No," she whispered, "but something happened." She hesitated as her voice started to tremble, "I was hurt. I spent some time comatose. It was," she swallowed, "it was strange, and…" she breathed a jagged, awkward breath, "and I don't like to think about that."

Alex's eyes opened wider.

"Kim, what happened?" she whispered.

Kim shook her head a little.

"I don't remember," she said quietly, "that whole time feels like a bit of a blur." She put her hands to her head and tried to focus. Quite aside from her memory loss it was all such a long time ago. "I do remember you getting shot. I remember my hospital room and Keats watching his tape."

"What was on the tape?" Robin interrupted.

"His death," Kim said quietly.

Alex developed a curious expression on her face. Her memory held no concept of what had been on the video but now Kim had said those two words the tiny spark of something began to fire in her brain. She could see flashes of the imagery before her eyes.

"He died… more than once," she whispered.

Kim nodded slowly.

"Keats… he went crazy," she continued, "I remember his human side was so, so close to winning out." A flash of herself as a far younger woman telling him the tape had been too cruel to see haunted her. She flinched as she thought of it. "But then something turned him back into that monster again. I think he fired at Simon first –"

"What?" Robin's fears rose.

"But because he was indestructible…"

This time Robin choked.

"_What?"_

"…Keats lost the plot. Fired three times." She frowned a little. "I remember one bullet hit…"

"_The bed pan,"_ she and Alex said in unison. Their eyes met and they found themselves unable to resist a giggle at the thought of it. It was a memory they both shared, one they'd carried over from another place and another time, and with the tension and anxiety in the room it was a laugh they both needed.

"The sound of it…" Alex smiled.

"_Ping!"_ Kim did a vague impression.

Robin looked on, slightly in disbelief.

"I… I guess you had to be there," he frowned.

The brief laugher faded almost as soon as it has started and a serious tone took over the conversation again.

"Kim," Alex began, "I just need to know… Did I make it? Am I alive?"

Kim took a deep breath.

"You survived," she said quietly.

That was step number one. A jolt went through Alex's body as the truth of it settled in.

"I survived?" she repeated. She put a hand to her chest, breathing in deeply. She closed her eyes for a moment. She _survived._

"But," Kim said quietly.

Alex froze. She didn't like 'but'. That wasn't a word she wanted to hear right then.

"B-but what?" she whispered.

Kim looked at her grimly.

"I don't remember all of it," she whispered.

"Please, just tell me what you can."

Kim nodded.

"Alright." She breathed on. "Here's what I can remember. You woke up, and it wasn't _you."_

Alex froze.

"What do you mean, it wasn't me?" she asked.

"I… I'm guessing it's… well, it must have been the same thing you're going through now," said Kim, "except in reverse."

Alex felt short of breath suddenly. She couldn't take this in.

"There's another Alex?" she whispered, "one living in nineteen ninety five?"

Kim nodded.

"We thought you had amnesia," she said quietly, "You… you were different, ma'am. Really different. Scared the shit out of Hunt. He thought he'd lost you."

Alex felt her heart sinking. Little things about the nature of Gene's world had started to come back to her throughout the conversation and she began to remember what it was like to find herself there way back in 1981. Her behaviour back then had been nothing to be proud of.

"What happened to her?" she whispered, "I mean, me… I mean…" she closed her eyes and gave an angry sigh then glanced at Robin. "What would be the correct sci-fi term for this?"

Robin hesitated.

"Uh… what happened to the nineteen ninety five manifestation of Alex?" he tried.

Alex snapped her fingers.

"Manifestation. I like it," she said.

Kim closed her eyes for a moment. She wished she had better recall of that time.

"I... I'm trying to remember," she whispered, "I'm sorry… I remember… I remember Simon working out what had happened to the other you. He realised that somehow you'd been split in two. God knows how he worked that one out."

Robin looked down and gave a private smile. He felt his cheeks flushing. Years apart, at opposing sides of the fine line between life and death and yet they were still running parallel to each other.

"Simon's got the right kind of brain for that," he said quietly.

"Yeah, a geeky one," Kim said fondly, remembering her days as a guest at Simon's.

"Don't knock it," said Robin, "it solved the riddle of Alex, didn't it?"

Alex glanced at Robin and gave him a thankful smile.

"Robin sussed the same thing out here last night," she explained to Kim.

Kim nodded slowly and looked at Robin.

"Did Simon ever have a really crappy jumper when he was with you?" she asked suddenly.

Robin froze.

"That's… _random,"_ he frowned, "I think the ink fumes have gone to your head."

"You don't get ink fumes," Kim told him.

"Back to the matter at hand?" Alex prompted urgently. Her anticipation was building.

Kim tried to get her thoughts back on track.

"When he figured it out," she continued, "we tried to find her… the other you," she paused. "I…. my memory's blank after that, Alex. I'm so sorry." She looked down. "Something happened to me while we were trying to help the other you, and… the next thing I remember… it was Christmas and," she frowned, "and Simon made us all play some stupid food game show. Luckily I don't remember much about that either…" she looked at Alex. "I'm sorry, there's_ so_ much that's gone. But," she paused, just for a moment, "You came back. And I don't know how or when, or what you did to get there, but… you came back."

Her words slammed into Alex like a brick wall in her path. They knocked her senseless. Their power was too strong to sink in and stayed on the outside for a while, lapping around her head without her managing to accept them as true. Finally, after a lifetime of silence and wide-eyed revelation she leaned a little forward as a gasp emerged from within her.

"I came back?" her words were quiet and shaky as she repeated them a second time, without a question mark looming over them. "I came _back."_

Kim nodded. She couldn't understand why tears were starting to block her vision.

"Yes," she breathed, "you came back, but I…. I don't know how. I'm so sorry, Alex… I woke up and you were back, but I don't know how you got there." She paused. "I'm not even sure _you_ know how you got there."

"But I make it back?" Alex tried to keep her elation from bubbling over. Butterflies were floating through her insides like an explosion of energy. "I make it back and… and that's what I need to know…"

"But we still have to get you there," Robin reminded her. He reached out and squeezed her hand, "we still have to find a way."

"I… I don't think you liked to talk about it," Kim's memory slowly revealed a little more. Her face screwed up as she tried to pinpoint her memories, "maybe that's why I don't remember?" she looked a little anxious, "I don't think it was easy, Alex. You got back, but…"

The look on Kim's face brought Alex's fear back in fistfuls. From elation to terror in the space of a breath or two, she began to realise that just knowing she made it wasn't quite enough. The how and the when of her return could almost be as traumatic as never making it back at all and there was no way of knowing until the time came. She wasn't quite ready to face that thought. It was too hard to contemplate. She had to focus on getting back for now and on the belief that she would make it. She closed her eyes just for a moment.

"But I'll get there," she whispered, "and that's what I have to hold onto now."

Robin was busy chasing a second fly around his mug with a napkin.

"Is there anywhere else we can go?" he asked hopefully, "there's too much wildlife in my coffee here. And besides," he noticed a couple of nosey teenagers staring at them, "walls have ears."

Kim glanced around.

"Maybe we should go to my place," she said quietly, "it'll be more private, comfortable and there's no insects or chips in my mugs."

Alex nodded quietly.

"That sounds like a good idea," she said. As she got to her feet she noticed Kim had a large case with her. "What's in there?"

"My tattooing gear," Kim said matter-of-factly.

"Oh," Alex bit her lip. "So you can tattoo anywhere?"

Kim hesitated.

"Why?" she asked, "thinking of getting inked on your voyage over from nineteen ninety five? Because the ink doesn't travel when you skip time zones you know." She looked a little annoyed. "I learned that the hard way."

Alex hesitated. She opened her mouth to say something then thought better of it and gave an embarrassed laugh.

"No," she said, "It's silly, really."

"What is?"

Alex shook her head.

"Forget it. I'm just being daft."

Kim frowned.

"No dafter than your outfit," she realised for the first time that Alex was in men's clothes and slippers, "what are you wearing?"

Robin exchanged a glance with Alex.

"Kim, Alex is in a bit more trouble than we told you," he said, "she had to escape from Evan."

"Who's Evan?"

"He's apparently my _godfather,"_ Alex said quietly, "He took me out of hospital early to look after me at home. He was… he was trying to keep Robin away from me."

Kim frowned.

"Why?"

"I'm…still a little hazy on that," said Alex.

"The point is," Robin began, "she left in a hurry. In her pyjamas. He was threatening to section her because of her 'memory loss' and she's been wearing Simon's clothes for the last two days."

"And no underwear," Alex added.

"God, Alex, what a mess," sighed Kim, "come on, I'll get you back to mine and find you something."

"I'm not wearing second hand underwear," Alex declared.

X

Kim led Alex and Robin out of the café and gave them instructions to her house. She parted from them with a fond smile and a wave before getting into her own car and leading the charge.

As Robin and Alex climbed into Robin's car a shocked silence fell between them. The half-story that Kim could recall had shaken them both up in so many ways. For Robin, to hear her talking of Simon as though he was still alive and well had been deeply stirring while for Alex the knowledge that there was another her – a naïve, self-righteous and – if she recalled correctly – fairly obnoxious version of her running around in her own time made her feel very strange indeed. She cringed when she thought of her early days in Gene's world and the way she treated the place. Now there was another 'her', probably making all the same mistakes.

"Shit," she hissed.

Robin glanced at her.

"What?"

"I need to get back to ninety five faster than you got that fly out your coffee," she said.

"What's the matter?" Robin asked.

Alex sighed deeply.

"_I_ am," she said. She looked at him. "The other me. I need to stop her from driving Gene away, alienating all my friends, losing me my job and drinking a small reservoir of wine."

Robin scratched his head.

"That sounds urgent," he said.

"You've no idea," sighed Alex, "fire up the…" she paused, "what make of car is this again?"

Robin hesitated.

"A red one?" he shrugged clulessly.

Alex sighed.

"That'll have to do," she said, "You'd better fire it up anyway."

"Can I just… start the engine?" Robin asked hopefully.

Alex sighed.

"It's just not the same, is it?" she muttered.


	39. Chapter 19, 1995: Misterioso

_**A/N: The second chapter today – sorry, it's a long one!**_

**Chapter Nineteen: 1995**

Alex felt the butterflies of anticipation from the second she woke up that morning, even before she recalled why they were there. Despite having the start of a hangover threatening to thump away inside her head from the alcohol that a dark and charming stranger had poured into her glass repeatedly the night before she felt excited and anxious to start the day; a day that she knew would be one full of surprises and opportunities.

She slipped her legs out of the bed. It was a big bed; king size, most likely. The sheets were fresh, crisp and clean. Despite Keats recommending that she used a clean set she was sure these hadn't been slept in at all. She'd made the most of them all night long, the comfortable bed in a place well away from _'Gene'_ finally bringing her a good night's sleep.

Well, good except for one thing. The frustration. The yearning. The previous night had left her on the edge of her seat. Her own bloody fantasy psychosis and she didn't even get a bit of excitement at the end of the evening!

"Bloody uptight little mind," she mumbled to herself as she stared into the mirror. She brushed back her blonde highlights and pulled them into a severe ponytail. "I have to do something about this ridiculous Jennifer Anniston doo," she mumbled. She found the pins she'd taken out from her hair the night before and twisted her pony tail around neatly at the back of her head before she fixed it firmly.

She cast a disapproving glance at her blouse, crumpled and creased from sleeping in her clothes overnight. That wouldn't do, not for the day she had planned anyway. She took a punt on there being something she could wear in the tall wardrobe beside her and opened the heavy wooden doors to reveal a world of shirts, one after another, stretching as far as the eye could see.

"I think I can do something with this," she said, pulling a lilac shirt from the wardrobe. Quickly she shed her blouse and slipped her arms into the shirt. The material was cold and a little stiff to the touch.

"Starch?" she frowned. Who went to the bother of starching their shirts? No matter, the colour became her and she felt she could pull the look off as she rolled up the sleeves a couple of times. She began to button up the shirt, then tied the lower half around her waist. She thought she could just about get away with that, but as she stretched up to adjust her hair the shirt rose too, revealing the peculiar gunshot wound that she had no memory of, as well as the thicker waistline that made her feel embarrassed and ashamed. Quickly she untied the shirt and tucked up awkwardly into the top of her skirt. The bulk of the material was too uncomfortable so she untucked it, rummaged around in the wardrobe, found a belt and fastened it around her waist.

Finally, she had it. That was perfect.

Well, not _perfect._ Perfect would be reaching into her wardrobe in 2008 and pulling out a lovely smart, fresh suit. But this was as close as she was going to get.

For the next fifteen minutes she felt like a nervous school girl waiting to go on her first date. She paced up and down, bit her nails, fiddled with her hair and picked at the paint on the wall. Finally, peering out of the window, she saw a car pull up from which stepped the man who had turned her life around just the day before. The man who had sent a rush of excitement and adrenaline through every inch of her body. The man whose charm had soothed her nerves and infiltrated every part of her mind.

"_Jim,"_ she smiled as she opened the door.

Keats walked down the path with a definite spring in his step. There was that smile, that slightly boyish grin that seemed to hide a wickedness he's only shown a glimpse of the night before. Alex felt her heart give a hard, strong thump as he drew closer.

"Nice and punctual, Alex," he smiled, "always good to see."

Alex smiled a little coyly. She was a whisker away from fluttering her eyelashes but thought that was going a step too far. That didn't stop her from leaning alluringly against the door post though.

"I've been looking forward to finding out what you had in store for me today," she said.

"Well that's for me to know –"

"And me to find out?" asked Alex.

Keats raised an eyebrow.

"Now I can tell you're a detective," he said, a hint of sarcasm bleeding through the charm. He held his arm out in a loop. "Come on," he prompted.

Feeling a little nervous, Alex threaded her arm through his. The feeling of his warmth, the material of his suit feeling heavy through her thin shirt sleeves, sent a flutter through her stomach and caused her to breathe in sharply. She closed her eyes just for a second as he began to lead her to the car.

"Am I starting work today?" she asked.

"All in good time," Keats smiled, "I thought you might need me to take you home first."

"Home?" Alex asked as he opened the car door and held it for her. She died a little right there and then. The perfect gentleman was still perfect twenty-four hours after he first rescued her from the pavement.

"You can't wear my shirts forever," he said.

Alex blushed a little as she pulled her legs into the car.

"Oh, Jim, I'm sorry… I thought it would be OK," she said awkwardly.

"It's fine," Keats laughed, "but I'm sure your own clothes will fit you batter!"

Alex thought about her thicker waistline and heaving bosoms.

"I wouldn't be too sure about that," she mumbled as he closed the door and walked around to the other side. She waited while he opened the door and sank into the driver's seat. "I'm… I'm worried about going back there," she said, "to my flat."

"Don't be," said Keats, "I'll be there. If Gene Hunt comes sniffing round then I'll be right there to get rid of his smug mug. Alright?"

Alex nodded and gave a little smile, but it quickly gave way to a frown of confusion.

"How…. How did you know my… _'ex'_…" she used her air quotes, "…was Gene Hunt?" she questioned.

The tiniest hint of anxiety flashed in Keats's eyes as they glanced in her direction before turning back to the road as he began to pull out of the drive.

"Well, you must have told me yesterday," he said.

"_N-n-n-n-no,"_ Alex said slowly as she racked her brain, "I'm fairly sure I didn't."

Keats laughed a little. There could have been a touch of anxiety behind it but Alex couldn't tell for certain.

"Well, I probably heard it on the grapevine," he said, "you know what it's like between rival stations. Everyone gossiping about everyone else's business. I probably heard it somewhere and didn't really remember until now."

Alex glanced at him, one hand brushing her overgrown fringe from her eyes.

"Was there really an Alex Drake before I arrived?" she wondered out loud.

Keats's eyes turned to her, just for a moment. He began to feel quite warm. A little too warm. He wanted to tug at his collar a little and pull it away from his neck but his concentration was already fading every time he caught a glimpse of Alex's crossed legs with the hint of her stocking tops peeping out from the hem of her skirt. He needed to keep both hands on the wheel at least.

"I think there's always been an Alex Drake," he told her, "you're a one-off. Unique. _Every_ place should have Alex Drake."

Alex gave a gentle laugh as she watched the road go by. She silently thanked her subconscious for finally rewarding her for all the crap she'd been through since she set foot in 1995. She could bear all the Gene Hunts of this world as long as there was a Jim Keats to balance him out. Of that, she was certain.

~xXx~

"Come in."

Superintendent Fletcher looked up from his crossword, which was cleverly hidden behind a large sheet of paper marked _"Very very urgent case files." _It was a cunning disguise. No one had rumbled it yet. Well, apart from his eight year old daughter. And his pet hamster.

A grim Gene Hunt entered the office.

"Sir," he began.

Fletcher put down his crossword and looked at him with some concern.

"Ahh, DCI Hunt," he began, "I tried to contact you yesterday about Drake."

Gene breathed out heavily

"I know, sir," he began.

"She seemed to be… _unwell,"_ he began, "confused. I was concerned about her heath and her safety."

"You an' me both, Sir," Gene said a little awkwardly.

"I tried to locate you but you weren't in your office," Fletcher said. His tone was slightly accusatory but his expression showed genuine concern.

"I had to go home," Gene told him, "migraine."

"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that," said the Super, "I tried to call you, but Drake's was the only number we had for you."

"Well, I'm staying with DCI Shoebury until Alex is feeling better," Gene said a little hoarsely.

"Oh, right," Fletcher locked his fingers together and leaned forward a little. "Gene, let me level with you. I am very concerned for her state of mind."

Gene breathed in.

"We all are, Sir."

"She was claiming that she… it sounds stupid," he gave an awkward laugh, "she wanted to make a complaint of sexual harassment against you."

Gene's first response was to yell; _"She bleeding well what?"_ but he didn't think that would help her case so, as much as it pained him to do so, he held his tongue.

"Alex has amnesia," he began. It wasn't a total lie. "She can't remember anything about this station or anyone in it." He sighed with a heavy heart, "Including me,"

Fletcher sighed.

"Gene," he began.

Gene flinched.

"I know it's serious when you start using me first name," he said.

"The thing is," he continued "we're concerned for her safety."

"We? Who's _we?"_

"I spoke to some of our mental health advisers, and they said…"

"Look," Gene began a little more firmly, "I appreciate your concern, _sir_, but what Alex needs is some time to get her memory back. When it returns she'll be as right as rain."

"And until then," fletcher continued, "She could be a danger to…"

"She's no more of a danger to anyone than yer bloody crossword puzzle," said Gene.

Fletcher looked alarmed.

"How did you…?" he began.

"She just needs some time," Gene continued, "no interference. Just time."

Fletcher stared at him. He breathed in deeply and exhaled at a high volume. Finally, he began,

"I understand what DCI Drake means to you. And I know that you don't want to see anything happen to her. But I am worried about her. Hunt, you've got three days to prove to me that she's compos mentis; after that I will be seeking sanctions to have her detained under the mental health act.

"You bleeding _what?"_

Fletcher didn't like the tone in Gene's voice, nor the look in his eyes but he stood his ground.

"I'm sorry, Gene," he said, "we all care about DCI Drake and nobody wants to see anything happen to her."

"Like getting a strait jacket for Christmas?" Gene said angrily. He spun around and began to march to the door. "Well thank you for your time, _sir,"_ he spat.

"Gene?"

Gene hesitated by the door. He rolled his eyes, muttered to himself and turned around.

"What? _Sir,"_ he remembered to add.

Fletcher looked at him seriously.

"Prove me wrong," he said, "please, do, prove me wrong."

As Gene looked at the Super he could tell that his concern for Alex was genuine. It wasn't about wanting to lock her up and throw away the key or sending her out to the funny farm. Alex was loved throughout the station. Although no one else could miss her in quite the same way as Gene, they all needed her back.

After staring in silence for several moments, eventually Gene nodded.

"Alright" he said quietly, "I will. Sir."

With that he nodded, turned and left the office.

Fletcher let out a breath he didn't even know he'd been holding.

"I hope you do, Hunt," he said honestly.

~xXx~

Alex felt a sense of trepidation as she turned the key in the lock and slowly stepped into her flat. She peered around as though Gene could be hiding in a dim corner somewhere.

"The coast is clear," she said quietly. She began to walk slowly through to her bedroom, aware that Jim was matching her step for step. As she arrived at the door she paused and sighed. "Oh, _damn."_

"What's the matter, Alex?" asked Keats.

Alex sighed and turned around.

"I packed _Gene's_ things up when I told him to leave," she said, "He's got the suitcases."

Keats nodded slowly.

"Well," he said, "this is just an interim measure, surely? Bring what you need for a day or two and then we'll reassess."

Alex gave him a grateful smile, glad of his ability to think rationally about this.

"Good idea," she said quietly. She hesitated. "I'll… I'll get my things from the bathroom first," she said.

A little nervously she walked through to the bathroom. She switched on the light and gathered up all the things she felt sure she would need. The first item on the list was her toothbrush. She felt embarrassed to admit that all she'd been able to do that morning was to swill her mouth around with toothpaste and mouthwash. She gathered a few other things – deodorant, a razor, a hair brush –

That made her hesitate. She looked at her hair again in the mirror; the colour and style that felt so over the top and abhorrent to her. As though sensing a cue, Keats stepped in from the hallway, so smoothly, so gracefully, almost as though he'd appeared from thin air. He stepped behind her and she saw his face reflected in the mirror. He laid one hand gently on her shoulder.

"Oh Alex," he sighed, "You know, I have never understood why you felt the need for these brassy highlights."

Alex froze and felt goosebumps travel through her body.

"It's not what I would have chosen if I'd been the one making the decision," she whispered.

Keats reached up.

"Here," he said. He pulled the pins from her hair, letting her ponytail tumble down before removing the band and setting her hair loose. He played with it, ran his fingers through it, then took the brush from her hands and began to smooth it down. All the while, Alex felt a tremble travel through her, from head to toe. There was an excitement, a sweet anticipation and even a strange kind of arousal. But somewhere in there, there was also a sense of nervousness.

"You don't need this," he breathed close to her ear, "look at you. See how beautiful you are?" hid hand graced the side of her neck, sending electricity through her veins. "You don't need any of this. Tacky, brassy, _cheap."_ His last word came forth so sharply that it made her jump a little. "If you're going to head up my new department then you're going to need to look a little more professional than this, Alex," he whispered, "serious. Smart. None of this glamour bullshit."

Alex closed her eyes for a second, absorbing the feeling his fingers running through her hair again.

"No," she whispered.

Almost in an instant, he drew away from her and tore his needed touch from her person. His face took on a smile and a pleasant, warm expression as he made a suggestion.

"I'll tell you what. How about we pay a visit to the hairdresser before I take you to work? We'll fix this right up for you. Would you like that, Alex?"

In that moment, that strange, twisted moment, Alex felt herself quite unable to say no. She wasn't sure she wanted to, but she wasn't certain she wanted to say yes either. However, something in his eyes made the decision for her.

"Alright," she whispered.

His fingers traced a line from her scalp right to the ends of her hair. His face took on a most charming smile.

"Excellent," he beamed, "a new look will be just the thing to give you a boost on your first day."

As Alex gathered up all her bathroom fare she felt a slight awkwardness from Keats's offer and his comments. It was true that he had only been voicing what she already thought about her hair but his manner had left her feeling uncomfortable.

"_External verbalisation of my thoughts,"_ she told herself, "My subconscious has created an outlet to amplify my own discomfort about my appearance and to assist me in changing it rather than in suffering an appearance that makes me unhappy."

Keats heard her muttering to herself but wasn't paying attention. Whatever she'd said, as long as was a means to an end she could explain it away any way she goddamn liked.

"Hurry up and fetch what you need from your bedroom," he told her, "there's a new look waiting for you." He sank down on her couch and glanced over his shoulder, smiling to himself. "Or an old look," he said quietly with a smile.

~xXx~

Kim followed Simon through the front door, her nerves growing as she saw how awkward he seemed.

"Tell me you saw it too," she pleaded.

Simon glanced at her. He bit his lip.

"I thought you were supposed to be ringing round the hospitals," he said.

"Blah blah, yeah, all in good time, after some painkillers," Kim's hangover spoke for her, "don't bullshit me Simon, what the hell was that? You saw it too, you must have done."

Simon sighed and closed his eyes as he shut the door.

"Yes," he said quietly, "I did. But I have no idea what it was. I've never seen anything like it before."

"There were stars in the daytime," Kim reminded him.

"I know what they _were!"_ cried Simon, "I just don't understand why they were there or what they meant." He sighed deeply. "Look, I'm only here to change out of this bloody jumper and then I've got a lot of ground to cover."

He marched through to his bedroom but Kim followed him like a dog pursuing a slab of meat.

"You have to have_ some_ idea, Simon."

"Why would_ I_ know?"

"You're Hunt's best buddy-pal."

"I'm no such thing!"

"You know more than the rest of us though," Kim reminded him, "he's told you all about this place. I only get the headlines, you got the full double-page scoop."

Simon pulled a clean shirt out of his wardrobe.

"I don't know everything. I'm still learning," he reminded her, then he hesitated. "Well? Turn around then."

Kim rolled her eyes and turned her back while Simon removed the most hated jumper in the known universe and began to pull on his shirt instead.

"Can you at least ask him?" Kim pleased, "it was totally freaky. I can't stop thinking about it."

"Alright, I'll ask him," Simon promised, "but whether he'll tell me anything remains to be seen." He fastened up a couple of buttons. "Alright, you can turn around now," he said.

Kim sighed and turned back to face him.

"I don't know why you made me turn my back anyway," she said, "the number of times you've had your shirt off this week –"

"By _accident!"_ Simon protested. He pulled his jacket over the shirt and left the room, Kim following on behind.

"What did you do with those Alka-Seltzers I bought for the Guv yesterday?" she asked, the effects of the previous night's booze beginning to really get to her.

"In the kitchen," sighted Simon, "he didn't use them in the end. Preferred hair of the dog instead."

He absently followed Kim as she went to find them. So taken was she in her search for the medicine that she didn't notice Simon standing behind her for several moments and when she did she jumped a mile in the air.

"God, Simon, what are you doing lurking in the doorway?" she cried, "do I really need a heart attack to go with my hangover? I don't think so." She found the Alka Seltzer and set about rustling up a glass of water to drop them into.

Simon looked a little sheepish. He had something on his mind. He'd tried to ignore it but it wouldn't go away.

"Can I talk to you?" he asked.

"I wish you would," said Kim, "Silent Shoebury freaks me out."

Simon sank into a chair at the kitchen table and sighed. He bit his lip for a moment then finally looked up.

"I had a dream yesterday, Kim," he began, "I fell asleep at the table, I don't even remember drifting off."

Kim sat down opposite him, a fizzing glass in her hand.

"What happened?" she asked.

Simon stared at his hands.

"I can't remember all the details," he said, "but it's really shaken me up." He took a deep breath. "I was chasing someone. A man. I knew he was familiar but I don'rt remember who it was. I was desperate to catch him, Kim. Like he'd done something truly awful."

Kim stared at Simon. She found his words made her a little anxious.

"Go on," she whispered.

"It felt like I was chasing him forever," Simon continued, "just when I started to catch up with him he turned around and fired a gun at me."

"Did you see who it was?" asked Kim.

Simon shook his head.

"I only saw the gun," he whispered, "then the dream went black and…" he gave a deep sigh, "I have this split second memory of what happened after," he continued quietly, "there was this snatch of a dream. It only lasted for a second. I was in a car. It was _so real,_ I could feel the steering wheel beneath my hands." He hesitated. "I looked around and Robin was in the passenger seat, but he was only there for a second, and then –"

"Then?" Kim prompted, wrapped up in his words.

Simon shook his head slowly.

"Then Gene parked his arse at the table and woke me up," he whispered.

Kim stared at him for a moment. She thought about his words as she downed the fizzing liquid. She wasn't quite sure what to say. Finally she gulped the last of the alka seltzer down, muffled a burp and sighed.

"Why did it shake you up so much?" she asked.

Simon shook his head.

"I wish I knew," he said, "_that _doesn't make sense for a start. The bit with the gun… I can't be killed by bullets, Kim, so why did it shake me up so much?"

"Being faced with a gun is still scary," Kim pointed out.

Simon looked down.

"And the last part," he whispered, "it felt so real."

"Was it a flashback to your accident?" Kim suggested.

Simon shook his head.

"No," he said, "in the dream I was driving and Robin was in the passenger seat."

Kim hesitated. She tried to think of some other meaning but nothing came to her.

"I think you're going to have to wait until the Alka-Seltzer has had time to do its stuff first before I can get my head round that," she told him, rubbing her temples.

Simon put his head in his hands.

"God, Kim, why is everything so bloody depressing right now?" he mumbled, "everything's such a big, confusing depressing mess." He paused. "I think I'll put the jumper back on…"

Kim scrambled to her feet, on high alert.

"Don't you dare!" she cried.

Simon glanced up.

"I was only joking," he told her.

Kim looked at him suspiciously.

"Still," she said, "I'm raising the jumper alert factor to amber." She sighed. "Why do you keep wearing that bloody thing anyway?" she asked, "you know Hunt's only going to rip the piss out of you for it."

"It's warm and comfortable," Simon said, sounding like a QVC presenter, "and besides, it's not like he doesn't have any other ammunition. If I wasn't wearing the jumper it would only be something homophobic or involving me being nerd of the year or a vague threat to my video collection."

"Then why give him more to pick on you about?" Kim asked.

Simon got to his feet and shook his head slightly as he walked to the lounge.

"It's just a jumper," he said, "if I want to wear it then I will."

Kim followed him through.

"It's almost like you _want_ him to rip on you for it," Kim told him.

"Don't be stupid," Simon sighed, picking up his keys from the table.

Kim hesitated.

"Like you want the attention."

Simon turned to her crossly, surprised by the level of anger in his tone as he snapped,

"Kim, _drop_ it, OK? You don't know what you're talking about."

Kim hung back a little. She looked at him curiously and felt a strange little sadness in a way.

"What I said the other night," She said quietly, "you have, haven't you? You've got a crush on the Guv."

Simon shook his head slowly and turned away.

"Don't be silly," he said uneasily.

"Are you feeling guilty about Robin?" Kim asked, "Is that it?" She watched Simon shake his head but there was no strength or conviction behind it. "Because it's not like you have to stop looking, you know. Just because you're not with him right now, and you're hoping you'll be back together soon doesn't mean you can't…" she paused, "…can't find your eye caught by someone."

"I don't want to talk about this, Kim," Simon said quietly.

"I miss Sandra," Kim said quietly, "God, I really miss her, and we weren't anywhere near as serious as you and Robin, but it doesn't stop me from having eyes. It didn't stop me checking out Lindsay's arse when she was bending over to pick up the microphone last night. Or putting on the TV and spending an hour drooling over Gilli- I mean, Courtney Cox."

Simon froze.

"What was that again?"

He turned around in time to see Kim blush.

"Nothing"

"You were going to say Gillian Anderson," despite his annoyance with Kim for her pestering Simon felt a grin spread across his face, "weren't you?"

Kim flushed deeper.

"No," she lied.

"Yes you were!" cried Simon. He took a step towards her, "you've been secretly watching The X Files!"

"No I have not!" cried Kim.

"Liar!"

Kim wished the ground would open up beneath her and swallow her whole as she felt her whole image and credibility slipping away from between her fingers.

"You're wrong," she protested, "I've never seen an episode!"

"The X Files!" Simon cried, "you've been watching it on the sly!"

Kim took a step away.

"I have done no such thing, and if you tell anyone any differently I will unpick your jumper and use it to string you up outside Fenchurch East!"

"You're a closet X-Phile!" Simon cried, encroaching upon her.

"Shut your mouth!" cried Kim, trying to run for her life, but Simon was on the case. More amused than he had been by anything since he arrived in 1995 he chased her behind the couch where she toppled over an electrical wire and fell to the floor. Seeing his chance, Simon sat on her using his special bad guy trapping technique that he'd perfected on Nailer a few weeks before.

"Confess!" he cried.

"Confess to what?"

"Confess to being a secret fan of the X Files and take back every last insult you've ever used against me in which I am labelled a geek or a nerd," Simon demanded.

"I am exercising my right to remain silent," Kim told him as the door opened and Gene came back at the wrong moment. He frowned at them, scratched his head and looked thoroughly confused for a moment before declaring.

"I'm gone thirty minutes and you're both on the turn."

Simon rolled his eyes and climbed off the squashed Kim.

"Oh, grow up," he mumbled.

"Well what am I supposed to think when I come back to find you looking like you're making a bloody Joy of Sex video!" Gene asked. He paused. "At least you got rid of that bloody jumper, Shoebury."

Simon's cheeks began to turn pink and he felt Kim's eyes upon him. He glanced at her and found she had that same look upon her face that she'd had when she'd tried to talk to him a few minutes before. Simon didn't like that look. He didn't like anyone trying to pry into his feelings, especially when he wasn't even ready to acknowledge them himself. To remove her stare from him he took the only course of action he felt would be successful. Eyeing her crossly, he gave a quiet but pointed hummed rendition of the first three lines of the theme tune to The X Files. From Kim's glare and silence, it seemed to have the desired effect.

"Did I waste me breath this morning or are you two supposed to be out looking for Drake?" Gene asked crossly.

Kim and Simon exchanged a glance. They'd both been a little distracted.

"Sorry, Sir," mumbled Kim, "just had to get an alka seltzer." She gave a belch as though to illustrate the point.

"And I was changing out of my," he hesitated, _"Noel Edmond's costume," _he concluded sarcastically.

"Do I really need to remind you two that we've got something _important_ to do today?" Gene said crossly, "I need you both out there, looking for Drake so we just might stand a chance of getting _my_ Alex back while she's still got a station to come back to! Is that clear?"

Kim and Simon exchanged a guilty glance.

"Yes, sir," they mumbled in unison.

"Good," said Gene, "so get moving."

Feeling as though they'd been sprung having a fight down at the end of the playground Simon and Kim slunk out of the door to head off on their Alex-seeking mission. Something in Gene's tone and words worried them but, but neither felt ready to share with fear with the other. _'While she's still got a station to come back to'_ – what did that mean exactly? Somehow they both knew that sentence was loaded with much more than it seemed but neither felt truly ready to know what was hidden from their view.

~xXx~

The smell of the hair dye. The fingers massaging the shampoo against her scalp. The scent of the perfumed lather as it swirled down the sink. The sound of the scissors snipping away as chunks of her hair fell to the floor. The heat of the hairdryer on the back of her neck. How could they have all seemed so real when it was all in her mind?

The sound of the hairdryer drowned out the inane ramblings of the hairdresser as she put the finishing touches to Alex's new style. She thought about how Keats had taken care of everything – and she meant _everything._ Practically the only thing he hadn't done was to apply the hair dye and cut the style himself. He'd selected the hairdresser, used his charm to sneak Alex into her schedule when someone else should have been first, paid upfront – he'd even chosen the shade and style for her. Alex had argued a little but his whispered reassurances and an electric touch to the shoulder brought her back to a state of trusting him completely.

"You're going to look breath-taking, Alex," he told her with _that smile_ gracing his lips, "it'll be like turning back the clock."

_Oh, I hope so,_ Alex thought to herself, her older body pulling her down emotionally.

The humming stopped and cooler air flowed around her shoulders as the hairdryer went to rest.

"There," the hairdresser turned her toward the mirror, "All finished. What do you think?"

Alex gave a little gasp as she caught sight of herself in the mirror. The bright, showy highlights she'd seen as brassy and cheap were gone and in their place a familiar brunette palette stared back. The floppy Jennifer Anniston-style layers had been cut into a short, sleek style not dissimilar to a bob ending just around her jaw. She learned forward a little to take a closer look.

"I _love _it," she breathed, "I look so…"

The word she had on her mind was _'different'_ but as Keats stepped up behind her and appraised her new look he had a different word in mind.

"_Striking,"_ he told her quietly. His hands rested on her shoulders and began to travel up and down her arms. "There's just one thing missing." He reached for a clip on the hairdresser's trolley. "May I?"

The hairdresser looked a little taken aback. She was about to protest that it was her equipment and that she needed it but the smile on his face and something deeply hidden within his eyes stopped her from reacting. She took a helpless step back and allowed him to take over, just for a moment.

As though he'd been a secret hairdresser in some previous life, he took a comb and effortlessly swept back her fringe in a smooth movement then secured it on the top of her head with the clip. Alex swallowed, a little unsure about this action, especially as the act had revealed the full extent of the gunshot wound to her head.

"Jim," she whispered, "the scar… I don't want to show it."

Keats leaned close to her ear, his fingers gently sweeping her freshly cut hair away from her cheek.

"Don't be afraid or your scars," he said quietly, "they tell the story of all you've been through. All you have survived." He straightened up a little. "Don't be ashamed of surviving, Alex."

Something in his words sent a chill down her spine. She couldn't understand why, but as she turned and looked at him that smile and those eyes took her doubts away. The expression on his face brought her a renewed sense of excitement and energy and as she got to her feet and dropped the hairdresser's cape to the floor she couldn't wait to know what lay ahead for the rest of the day.

"Come on," Keats stretched out his hand to take hers. With a little hesitation she finally reached out and took it, his palm warm and welcoming.

"Where are you taking me now?" she asked.

"To the station," Keats told her, "show you off. Set the standard for the rest of that bunch." He looked at her and his eyes twinkled like starlight. "You're going to be the making of Fenchurch West, Alex," he said, "You have something the station needs. You're going to bring something fantastic to the team."

Alex felt her cheeks burning with a red glow once again. How did he have such a strong power over her? How did he have such a measure of her emotions? She felt herself warming inside.

"Thank you, Jim," she whispered, "I hope I will be able to live up to your expectations."

Keats couldn't resist running a gaze up and down her body.

"Oh, I have no doubt about that, Alex," he said with a wicked smile, "no doubt at all."

As he led her out to the car and whisked her away to Fenchurch West she couldn't believe the energy and fervour that Keats was dedicating to her. He'd lifted her right up from the dark and lonely world she'd arrived into just a couple of weeks earlier and turned things around for her. She felt a flutter in her chest as her heart raced while he drove along. His interest in her seemed both personal and professional. She felt certain she could fulfil all his work expectations, but as for what he wanted beyond someone to head up his new department, she just couldn't fathom. One moment his touch was sending a bolt of electricity through her, the next he had backed away and the professional Keats was back to the fore.

She supposed that she would just have to wait and see where the day took them, but she knew what she was hoping for deep down. As much as she hated to admit it, the thought of some excitement with a man who could captivate her with one glance or one little smile set her whole body alight. She hoped her subconscious would do her proud and give her the outcome she desired. It was about time she allowed herself to cut loose and enjoy the moment.

And, if she was going to do so, where would be safer than inside her own mind?

There was a whole day stretching ahead of them, a whole day to see where things would lead and to let her heart take control. For now she was just going to lean back and enjoy the ride – both the short car ride to Fenchurch West and wherever Keats was planning to take her emotions beyond it. It was going to be one hell of a day; she knew that much for sure.


	40. Chapter 20, 2001: Affrettando

_**A/N – Must have been talking out my backside yesterday as I'm uploading 2 chapters after all – but then I really am all caught up!**_

**Chapter Twenty: 2011**

Alex and Robin cautiously followed Kim into a quaint little house in a quiet road. In contrast to Kim's career, body art and appearance her home seemed very calm and cosy.

"Linda's away visiting family," Kim explained, "we won't be disturbed."

Alex looked around as she followed Kim into a lounge. Her attention was drawn to a row of photographs on the mantelpiece and she walked slowly toward them. She lifted one frame and glanced around at Kim.

"You have children?" she asked in surprise.

"Yes," Kim smiled, "Two boys. Donor sperm."

"And which one of you…?"

Kim smiled again.

"I did," she said.

Alex felt a warmth growing inside of her. Recalling Kim's terrible miscarriage at the hands of Keats it felt like a poetic resolution for her.

"That's _nice,_ Kim," she whispered, "that's really, _really_ good to hear."

"Where are they now?" asked Robin.

"They're with Linda, visiting their grandparents down in Hove," Kim explained.

Alex set the picture down and turned back to Kim with a smile.

"I'm so glad you found happiness," she said.

A wave of sadness crossed Kim's face. She sank onto the sofa as Alex and Robin joined her.

"It took a while," she said. She noticed they were looking at her a little worriedly and knew she couldn't leave it there. "I… I had a hard time when I first woke up. I mean… who _doesn't_?" Both her houseguests understood that feeling. "I'd spent months in that place and suddenly I was back, in a body I barely recognised. Nobody understood… well, how could they? Unless they'd been through it." Kim found herself suddenly eternally grateful to be sitting in the middle of who people who easily fitted that description. "It was so hard… harder for me because of what I had to do. Simon's advice… it was brilliant and it kept me safe from Keats but it didn't leave me with many options to seek help. I couldn't talk to anyone… couldn't tell anyone what I'd been through."

Alex felt tears welling in her eyes. It surprised her to see how much others suffered after spending time in Gene's world.

"I'm so sorry, Kim," she whispered.

"I split up with Sandra," Kim said quietly, "there were… _mutual incompatibilities_. I couldn't get past the guilt of what I'd done with Keats in ninety five and Sandra…" she sighed, "well, she didn't even _want_ to try to understand how hard it was to readjust. It doesn't matter how much someone loves you, they can't understand. Not unless they've been there."

Robin looked down a little awkwardly, an ache growing in his chest.

"I tried to understand," he said quietly, "I tried to help Simon. But it wasn't until I went back myself…" he closed his eyes. "Then I really got it."

Kim nodded slowly.

"Then there was my change of identity," she continued, "My family, friends… they all thought I'd gone crazy. Changing my name and leaving the force. I had to pretend I'd been on an undercover assignment that had gone wrong and that's why I did it. I started a tattooing apprenticeship, and that was hard… _fuck,_ that was hard work. But," finally her expression lightened, "I found my niche. Got myself a permanent job. And that's where I met Linda." She gave a genuine smile. "I think we're a better fit than I ever was with Sandra. So, you know – sometimes things work out for the best even when we least expect them to."

Alex stared at Kim and saw all that she had survived reflected in her eyes.

"You've been through so much," she whispered.

Kim began to look a little pained again.

"You know," she said quietly, "for the longest time I wasn't even completely sure how… how _real_ it had been."

Alex nodded slowly.

"I can understand that," she whispered.

"I had no proof that it was real," Kim continued, "but after what happened with Keats I couldn't take any chances either. Sometimes I thought I was crazy, changing my name and my life on the basis of a dream." She looked at Robin. "For years I wrestled with the notion of coming to see you at the New Year. I'd memorised that letter for Simon, but what if I came to your door and found you didn't exist?"

Robin shuffled awkwardly.

"Simon went through the same thing," he said quietly, "the first time around."

"And then," Kim's voice broke a little, "last year, I read in the paper… about Malcolm." She looked down as she felt herself beginning to choke up. "The dog. His death." She gave a distant smile but it was full of sadness. "He was such a strange man… with his suit…"

Alex gave a tiny laugh.

"And the Jarvis Cocker glasses," she said, "of course, that was only when he joined CID. He looked far less…"

"Stupid?" suggested Kim.

"…when he was in uniform," Alex concluded."

Kim nodded.

"I remember," she said quietly. She gave a hefty sigh. "When I read about him in the paper, my head… it practically exploded. Seven years I'd spent with the secret of that other place in my mind. Seven years I'd struggled with its tangibility. And then, there it was." She paused. "The proof."

Robin felt his chest tightening.

"Malcolm's death was Simon's proof too," he said quietly.

Kim looked at him sadly.

"Back in nineteen ninety five Simon told me that I would go to Malcolm's memorial," she said, "that I would see him there and sit next to him. When I walked in that room and saw him…" she shook her head slowly. "It took all I had not to throw my arms around him and tell him how much I'd missed him. But that wouldn't have done any good, because we hadn't met yet." She put her hand to her head. "Shit, this time travel stuff rots your mind!" She leaned back a little. "Just a couple of days later I had even more proof thrown at me," Her voice was lower now; pained. "All the Keats stuff… Simon's heroics." She glanced at Alex. "Saving you, in your room. Suddenly Keats was all over the papers and the TV. I'd tried to block him out for years… then you couldn't escape him. And then there was your accident," she looked at Robin, "Simon's death, that was all in the papers too… over the space of six months I went from blocking that world out completely to finding it haunting my everyday life." She let out her breath.

"And here we are, haunting your doorstep," Alex pointed out. She felt a little guilty. "I'm sorry, Kim."

"No, don't be," Kim said, a little smile creeping back, "it's good to see you. _Really_ good." She looked a little awkward. "I just…. I'm just sorry it's under such difficult circumstances." She stared at Alex for a moment. "You know, you look so different with your hair like that."

"So do you," Alex couldn't help pointing out. She gave a sad smile. "Hopefully I won't look like this for long."

"What do you mean?"

"There's some hair dye in the car," Alex explained, "I know, I know, it sounds stupid with everything else that's _so_ much more important to work through but I just have to get rid of this hair. This boring, lifeless…" she sighed. "And changing my look won't hurt to keep away from Evan either."

"You've got it in the car?" asked Kim.

"Yes."

"Do you want me to do it for you? Now?" Kim saw Alex hesitate. "Come on, you know what my hair was like in ninety-five – I went through so much hair dye I may as well have become a hairdresser instead of a tattooist. What do you say?"

The offer seemed a little strange and flippant under the circumstances but Alex was thankful for lightening the mood – let alone her hair.

"Kim, that would be fantastic," she said.

"Alright," Kim got to her feet, "You get the dye, I'll make us a drink." She paused, "white, no sugar?"

Alex smiled.

"Well remembered," she said quietly.

Kim glanced at Robin.

"Sorry, Robin, Simon told me pretty much everything about you except whether you take milk or sugar."

Robin smiled a little nervously.

"Coffee, white, one sugar," he said quietly.

Kim glanced at Alex.

"Thank god Hunt's not here," she said, "I'd be out of sugar by tea time."

Alex gave a fond smile as she watched Kim leave, then found Robin grabbing her arm a little urgently.

"Alex, what are you doing?" he hissed, "_hair dye?_ That's not what we're here for! We need to find a way to get you home."

"I know that," Alex told him, "but we've just intruded on her whole, rebuilt _life._ We've brought everything back to her – didn't you see her face? Robin, she's in shock, and in a way… in a way, so am I. I'm finding this hard enough." She looked at him seriously. "We need a break from the serious. Just an hour away from talking about ninety five and getting home. Let things settle. And then," she flinched as bile rose inside of her, "then there's something else I need to talk to Kim about."

Robin frowned.

"What?" he asked. The sight of tears welling unexpectedly in Alex's eyes brought him the answer with a jolt. "_Shit,"_ he whispered, "Keats. Right?" He watched Alex nod silently and bite her lip to keep away the tears. "I'm sorry," he whispered, "I'm really sorry. With all that's happened I'd forgotten about that." He found himself moved to put his arms around Alex protectively. She seemed so different to the woman he met in 1995 in many ways; fragile and scared, and yet in other ways she was even stronger. Would_ he_ have survived all she'd been through since she woke up? He didn't think so. "Look," he said quietly, "I'll get the dye. You and Kim do some girly stuff. Then when you're ready I'll give you time alone to talk. I'll go make a pizza or something."

Alex had particularly heard rave reviews of Robin's pizzas. Although, from what Simon had said, they were also a get-out clause for anything he didn't want to do. Difficult situation? _'I'll go and make a pizza.'_

"Now that," she said, "sounds like a good idea."

Robin stepped back, reached into his pocket for the car keys and began to walk to the door.

"I'll get your dye," he said and quickly disappeared.

Alex bit her lip as she looked around the room. It gave her a strange shudder to see the life young Kim had made for herself. Now they were pretty much the same age chronologically and the little blonde girl she'd known in CID had grown right up. Time, it seemed, was the strangest thing to comprehend. The rules didn't always work.

"I've missed you, Kim," she said quietly to herself but inside her feelings grew dark. There were others from her world that she was missing more.

~xXx~

Evan paced up and down yet again. His feet were taking him in a repeated pattern and his mind was doing the same.

"_Fuck."_

How had he found himself in this situation in the first place?

Alex had been missing for a day and a half by now. When he noticed she'd disappeared he panicked and started by looking around the local area. When there was no sign of her up or down the street he'd tried calling one or two work colleagues but quickly came to realise that one man alone would be the most likely one to receive a visit from Alex.

He couldn't understand what was happening between Alex and Robin, and to as point it didn't matter – if Alex was there then at least he would have found her – but the situation did confuse him terribly. He couldn't understand at what point Robin had gone from being '_Simon's boyfriend'_ to being a friend of Alex's. He swore that when Simon first started visiting Alex around the time of the whole terrible _Keats_ business Robin claimed to have never met her, and yet after his coma Robin spent hours sitting by her side and after she'd woken Alex had asked for him by name.

It was beside the point though. Robin's appearance in hospital had given Alex a seizure and her strange behaviour had given Evan genuine concerns about her state of mind. He was torn between wanting to find her to make sure she was properly cared for in her fragile state and wanting to stop her from roaming in the world where she may find out anything and everything about Layton, her shooting and his role in the death of her parents.

He found himself in a panic. The first step was to tell more lies, this time to Molly, to cover up for her mother's disappearance.

"_Your mother's had to go back into hospital for a couple of days as a precaution," he told her, "her blood pressure was too high."_

The guilt attached to seeing Molly's stricken face and pleas to go and visit her made his guilt increase tenfold but it was preferable to telling Molly that her mother had run away from home.

Hastily arranging for Molly to spend a couple of days with a friend, he began an endless loop of phone calls to Robin. When he answered neither his home phone nor his mobile Evan's suspicion increased and he took a panicked trip to his flat. Even a night spent outside Robin's flat yielded no answers and, as the pressure of his bladder finally became irresistible, he turned his back for a moment too long and Robin absconded.

All day he looked. He searched and hunted around the area, called hospitals and hotels, worked his way through her address book to call as many of her friends as possible but no one had seen or heard from her.

"_Robin. It has to be," _Evan muttered to himself repeatedly.

Another trip to Robin's flat and numerous calls found no sign of the man and his anxiety grew still further. He couldn't understand the link between them, even with Simon as the common factor, but somehow he knew Alex had gone straight there and now both had disappeared.

He grappled with his anxiety. He was terrified for Alex, worried about her safety, but at the same time he was more worried that together they were going to uncover his secrets.

Or had they already? Was that part of the reason behind their disappearance? He had no possible way of knowing.

When another night passed and another day arrived with no sign of Alex or of Robin he had a difficult decision to make and, either way, he knew there was a chance of losing Alex forever. He spent the morning pacing, worrying and trying to think it through until finally his worries made the decision for him. His concern for her safety finally outweighed his need for self-preservation.

With a deep breath and a silent prayer he lifted the phone and dialled. He closed his eyes and listened to the ringing on the line until the call was answered. Finally, as a voice came on the line, there was only one avenue to take.

"Hello? Police please." He hesitated. "I need to report a missing person."

~xXx~ 

Alex let the hot water cascade over her hair, rinsing out the dye and the shampoo. The sensation brought a touch of gravity back to her. It was something normal. _Real_. An everyday experience. After the strange, terrifying and exhilarating events of the last few days she was grateful for that.

She laid the shower head down in the bath, got to her feet and wrapped a towel around her head before turning off the water and rubbing her hair vigorously. A hint of blonde peeked out from under the towel which immediately put a smile on her face. It was a little hint of home.

She slowly made her way down the stairs, feeling drained and exhausted. She'd only been out of hospital for a few days and she'd pushed her body beyond its limits. She found Kim with a hairdryer and a selection of brushes.

"I feel like I've gone to the hairdresser's," Alex commented.

"Sit," Kim said, pointing to a chair, "you get the full blow-dry treatment, Ma'am."

Alex felt herself starting to blush unexpectedly.

"You don't have to call me that now," she said with an awkward smile.

Kim flinched a little.

"I'm sorry," she said, "old habits and all that."

Alex obediently sat in the chair and allowed Kim to take over the styling of her hair. She was eternally grateful for that. She could hardly sit up, let alone hold her arms up or hold the hairdryer.

"Where's Robin?" she asked.

Kim sighed.

"Your guess is as good as mine," she said, "he asked me for a tenner and directions to the supermarket and drove off talking about tomatoes and dough."

Alex smiled and closed her eyes.

"Robin missed his calling in life," she said, "you're about to experience his cooking expertise."

Kim began working a brush through Alex's hair.

"Well it's got to be better than the leftovers I was going to have tonight," she said, "Head back, please."

Alex tilted her head and the loud humming of the hairdryer took over from their conversation. She felt a little relieved about that. Thinking about the situation was overwhelming and they all needed a break from it, just for a little while. The warm air and the motion of the brush through her hair made her feel relaxed and almost a little sleepy. She felt herself struggling to stay awake for a while and had to force her eyes to stay open so that she didn't drift away. As her hair dried and the time passed by she found herself wandering mentally back to 1995 and thoughts of Gene and Fenchurch East.

She almost felt surprised when the hairdryer finally stopped its eternal drone and Kim declared;

"All finished."

"That's it?" Alex glanced at the clock. "My mind must have been a thousand miles away."

"Or sixteen years away?" Kim suggested. She gave Alex a relaxed smile and looked at her seriously. "You know what's really weird?"

Alex gave a little shrug.

"Me being here?" she guessed.

"OK, know what _else_ is weird…?" Kim tried.

"What?"

"We're almost the same age," said Kim, "aren't we?"

Alex looked at her carefully.

"I think so," she said, "Chronologically at least."

Kim laid the brush down and shuffled a little awkwardly.

"There's a part of me," she said quietly, "that's so glad it was real. It was hard… and adjusting to life back here was even harder… but it was important. It changed me. Made me who I am now."

Alex nodded.

"I know," she whispered. She felt in serious danger of getting emotional again, but luckily Kim changed the tone of the moment.

"Go and take a look at yourself," she said, "there's a mirror in the hallway."

With a burst of secret excitement Alex got to her feet and hurried out to the hall to check her new look. She gave a little gasp as a smile spread across her face. It wasn't perfect and it wasn't _quite_ like her 1995 hair – there were fewer layers and a heavier fringe to cover the scar she didn't want on display - but there were echoes of _her;_ the other her, the _real_ her, back at Fenchurch East with Gene and her friends.

"Welcome back," she whispered to her reflection.

~xXx~

Robin lumbered along with some fairly heavy bag of ingredients and wondered what Alex would have come back with if she'd gone shopping instead. He'd laughed at the self-service check outs as he went to pay. It was so, _so_ strange but despite the pressure, the worry and the difficulty they faced it was the first time Robin had felt truly alive since he'd woken from his coma. Maybe it was because this was the closest he'd felt to Simon since he left 1995. Maybe it was the thrill of their search for the truth. Maybe it was the friendship Alex had brought suddenly into his life. Whatever it was, he was glad of the feeling. Ever since he'd woken back in 2010 he'd felt dead inside.

He walked past a couple of shops on the way back to the car. He hadn't thought to take any change for the supermarket car park and frustratingly had to park a little way away. Glancing to one side he spotted a sign saying_ 'Yes! We have novelty toasters!'_ in the window of an electrical store. In the first instance, he wondered who the hell would want a novelty toaster. A second later he considered going in to see whether they had any in the shape of Red Dwarf.

Before he had a chance to do so, his attention was drawn to the television display in the window beside him. As his eyes travelled right, row upon row of TVs played out the same image. Small ones, big ones, even some bloody giant ones. On every screen, the picture was the same.

The image shocked Robin into a stony stillness, then sent him trembling to the core.

"Oh…" he paused for several moments, _"…Shit,"_ he concluded.

His legs pounded against the pavement and took him at speed back to the car where he threw the bags inside, jumped in and started the engine. He sped away from the street at a speed that almost put Gene Hunt to shame. There were no two ways about it, he had to get off back to Alex with an urgency that reflected her bowels after a dose of Milk of Magnesia.

~xXx~

"Kim, you are a hair genius," Alex told her happily as she walked back into the lounge, "thank you so much."

Kim looked a little distant.

"It's been so long since I heard anyone call me by that name," she said.

Alex felt a little awkward.

"Would… you prefer us to use your new name?" she asked.

"I think that might get a little confusing," said Kim, "don't you?"

Alex gave a laugh which was comfortable and genuine. She felt at ease and a spark of life had returned to her for the first time since she had woken from her coma. She looked brighter, she had friends around her and she was about to sample Robin's famous home-cooked pizza. For just a moment she almost forgot her predicament and the brittle situation she had found herself in, but that precious moment didn't last for long.

A hefty hammering against the front door brought a stunned gasp from Kim and Alex which was followed by a look of horror as Robin's voice started calling their names. Kim ran out into the hallway and yanked open the door.

"Robin, what the _hell-?"_

"Put the telly on," Robin ran through to the lounge.

Kim frowned, remembering Simon's televisual tendencies and said suspiciously,

"This had better not be a repeat of The X–Files you forgot about."

"Put the telly on," Robin repeated, "the news."

Kim knew from his tone that this was serious and didn't probe any further. She grabbed the remote and switched on _Sky News_ but the channel was at a commercial break.

"Ads," Robin mumbled, "try News Twenty-four."

Kim changed the channel and the BBC's news channel appeared on the screen. She turned up the volume and the three of them stood, in silence, listening to the grim newsreader and reading the _Breaking News_ ticker at the bottom of the screen.

"…_had defied doctors by waking from a two and a half year coma in the early hours of New Year's Day and had been allowed to return home to be cared for by her godfather three days ago. She went missing from his home on Wednesday afternoon between the hours of four and five and her state of mind has been described as 'confused' and 'volatile'. It's thought she has amnesia following her coma and may be a danger to herself and possibly to others."_

A highly unflattering photograph of Alex graced the screen. It showed her from a few months before her shooting in 2008. She supposed she had to be grateful that they didn't use one of her in her hospital bed.

"…_If you have seen this woman in the last two days you are advised to call your local Police station or the missing person's helpline," _the newsreader continued,_ "there is also concern for the whereabouts of thirty-year-old Police Inspector Robin Thomas, who they would like to talk to in connection with DI Drake's current whereabouts."_

As an equally unflattering photograph of Robin having his leg humped by a Police dog appeared on the screen, Alex and Robin turned to one another with a terrified stare. Both felt their hearts race and their mouths grow dry. They'd thought they could carry on their search for a route home for Alex without too much interference and only Evan to worry about. But Evan had raised the game.

"Oh _shit,"_ whispered Kim, "I'm harbouring wanted criminals."

"We're not criminals!" cried Robin, "we're just _missing persons!"_

"You're still _'wanted'!"_ Kim cried.

With another glance between them they knew that Kim was right. If they thought their battle so far had been difficult then things were about to get a hell of a lot harder. Home was looking farther away with every moment that passed. Suddenly it became terrifyingly clear that time was running out. From now on they had to make every moment in their quest count, because any second of freedom could be their last.


	41. Chapter 20, 1995: Attacca

_**A/N – Second chapter today but definitely, definitely only posting 1 tomorrow because I am absolutely caught up now! Whew!**_

**Chapter Twenty: 1995**

Alex felt as though she was heading to a film premiere as Keats drove her to Fenchurch West. Her new hairstyle and the pampering from the hairdresser had been an almost surreal experience. She caught a blurry glimpse of herself in the reflection of the car window as they sped along. She looked so different; so professional, so smart and so – what was the word Keats had used? Oh yes, striking – that was right. She couldn't believe how different it made her feel inside. How much stronger.

"Did you bring any make up with you?"

The question had caught her a little off guard and shook her out of her thoughts.

"Pardon?" she glanced away from her reflection and towards Keats as he drove along.

"Make up," he repeated, "from your flat? Did you pick any up?"

"Oh, I don't wear a lot of make-up," Alex said with a little smile, "understated. Less is more."

"Well, you should do," his eyes darted to her and his smile was warm, "you can pull it off. Be bold, Alex."

It seemed like a strange thing to say and Alex wasn't sure how to respond to that.

"I don't usually have a lot of cause to wear make-up," she explained.

Keats turned to her for a moment before turning his eyes back to the road.

"Free up your mind, Alex," he said, "you can be who you want to be here."

Alex glanced at him.

"_Here?" _

Did he understand her situation? Did he know what he was going through?

"At Fenchurch West you don't have dinosaurs like Hunt roaming the corridors," he continued, "be your own woman." This statement he followed up immediately with, "I'll get my DI to bring you some make up and I'll pick some clothes for you too."

The contradiction in his sentence just faded into the background as Alex stared ahead out of the window. She _was_ free here. It was her own mind and she could do and say as she wished. Nothing to stop her from being who she wanted to be, and - right then – what she wanted to be most was whatever Keats wanted to shape her into.

"This is going to be a hell of a day," she murmured under her breath, repeating her earlier thoughts, and turned back to stare out of the window as her anticipation built again.

~xXx~

The first words Simon heard as he entered the office were, "_Well thank you anyway,"_ followed by a most depressed sigh. He looked towards Kim's desk where she sat looking deflated and anxious.

"No luck?" he guessed quietly.

Kim glanced up and gave a second, deeper sigh as she saw him.

"I've called all the hospitals," she said, "there's no sign. Uniform were a bit bloody surprised when I gave them her description and listed her as a missing person too."

"That was a good idea," said Simon.

"Thanks," Kim said quietly. She paused. "I can see from that_ I'm-so-depressed-that-I-even-want-to-go-and-get-my-jumper_ expression on your face that you didn't have any luck either?"

Simon shook his head slowly.

"I went everywhere I could think of," He said, "no one's seen her." He paused. "Where's Gene?"

"In his office," said Kim.

Simon glanced up. The blinds were drawn around his private space, blocking the world out.

"Is he OK?" he asked.

Kim shrugged and gave a deep sigh.

"Would_ you_ be?"

Simon exhaled loudly. She had a point. He sat down beside her and leaned back a little. His mind was torn between so many different topics. He couldn't seem to get his thoughts straight. Finally, one topic took precedent.

"Kim," he began, "you've been here a while now, right?"

Kim looked at him.

"Yeah," she said cautiously, "why?"

"Has Gene ever mentioned Sam Tyler to you?"

Kim thought for a moment then shook her head slowly.

"Sam Tyler?" she repeated, "doesn't ring any bells. Why? Who is he?"

"I'm not sure exactly," Simon said, leaning back in his chair and tipping it back on its rear legs, "Gene was talking about him yesterday. _Well,"_ he sighed, "he was trying _not_ to talk about him. He mentioned him while he was pissed but he was evasive when I asked him later. All I got out of him was that he was, you know," he dropped his voice a little, "from _out there._ Like you. Like I was the first time I came here." He paused. "And that he wore a leather jacket."

"Why are you so interested?" asked Kim.

Simon shook his head slowly as he sighed. He wasn't sure himself.

"I don't know," he said, "Gene said I reminded him of Sam. Just wondered if that was good or bad." He paused. "He said something weird, too."

"What, like '_let's all go and have a glass of orange juice'_?" Kim suggested.

Simon ignored her comment.

"It just came back to me a minute ago," he continued.

"What?" Kim asked seriously this time.

Simon hesitated. His eyes met Kim's a little nervously.

"I thought it was the after-effects of his bender talking at the time but," he hesitated. "He said something about the last time someone started asking about Sam…" he paused and closed his eyes for a moment. "He was probably talking shit, but…"

Kim's interest was piqued now. She leaned forward a little.

"What?"

"He said his ceiling ended up," Simon's voice waivered slightly, _"full of stars."_

Kim hesitated,

"Stars?" she watched Simon nod. "That's… that doesn't make any…" she trailed off as she thought about the wave of starlight that graced the daytime just a few hours earlier. _"Stars,"_ she whispered again.

"It could have just been the hangover talking," Simon reminded her.

Kim shook her head slowly.

"Or it might be significant," she said.

Simon looked down and fell into silence. He didn't want to even think about this. He didn't know what the stars meant but felt instinctively that, whatever their purpose, it couldn't be anything good.

"We shouldn't talk about this now," he said quietly.

"_You_ brought it up!" Kim accused.

"I probably shouldn't have done," Simon realised with a mumble. He sighed and got to his feet. "I'm going to check Gene's OK. Keep an eye out for the ceiling turning into a planetarium."

Kim gave a mock salute.

"Yes sir," she said.

X

Gene's head rested against his folded arms on his desk. His top lip rose and fell as he snored. Externally he looked the picture of peaceful sleep and would have been a great advertisement for the comfortable perks of swapping your bed for a desk. Internally, however, his mind filled with thoughts and images that tore him up inside.

They were fleeting, frantic, coming and going with the speed of a scrolling microfiche machine but lingering long enough to burn him in his heart and his mind. Starlight dancing across the ceiling, a man in spectacles, the knee Alex sent into his groin, a flash of a pub and the gunshot that took his Bolly away.

"_Gene?"_ a voice tried to break through his slumber

The final image he saw was a grin; a smug, satisfied and mocking grin that belonged to one Jim Keats.

"I've got everything now," he sneered before the dream disintegrated into a flurry of stars and flame as a hand began to shake him awake.

"_Gene?" _Simon's voice was more insistent now, _"GENE!"_

"What?" Gene's head rose quickly and his voice was gruff and annoyed.

He looked up to see Simon peering at him.

"Are you OK?" he asked. He sounded worried.

"I was until you looked at me with yer _pity_ face," Gene mumbled, "I'm fine."

Simon wasn't sure about that but decided not to push the subject.

"Apparently we don't sleep in beds any more," he commented instead, "tables and desks have taken their place."

Gene looked at him seriously.

"No sign of Drake?" he asked grimly.

Simon shook his head.

"I'm sorry," he said quietly.

Gene breathed out so hard that he almost sent a pile of papers floating to the ground.

"Bollocks." It was a fairly tame word for Gene but his tone said more than the strongest of language ever could.

"Kim's tried the hospitals," Simon said, his eyes scanning the desk for a distraction, "there's no record of her or anyone matching her description being admitted."

"At least it looks like no one's punched her lights out for waggling her fingers at them," Gene said gruffly.

Simon's eyes stopped at a file on the edge of the desk. To begin with he thought he was imagining things but as he looked more carefully he realised that his mind hadn't been playing tricks. A sudden jolt struck his heart as it thumped away at the sight.

"Gene," he began quietly, "you get… all the papers on your desk," he began, "right?"

"Whose file d'you need?" Gene asked half-heartedly, "don't tell me there's some new time-travelling tosspot outside? That's all we need."

Simon cautiously lifted the file he'd spotted.

"Do you get… transfer papers too?" he asked, "people transferring to other stations."

"Who'd want to leave the eternal delights of Fenchurch East?" Gene mumbled, "That doesn't usually happen."

Simon bit his lip awkwardly as he opened up the file and handed it to Gene.

"It does now," he said quietly, "I don't think you're going to like this, Gene."

Gene looked at Simon's stricken face. It made him swallow hard without even realising it. His hand almost shook as he reached out to take the file from Simon, his expression saying as much as the words in the file would be able to share. A moment later the page itself plastered the same reaction across Gene's face. His eyes scanned the information, his eyes growing darker with every word he read. Several moments of silence passed, moments in which he tried to absorb the information that was coming from the file and process it in his angry mind. Finally his response came in two loud, furious words.

"The _bastard!"_

~xXx~

Keats walked Alex through Fenchurch West like an expensive new trinket. He noted with pride and arrogance that many heads turned their way. _Good._ Let people see her attached to his arm. It was no more than he deserved; to be the envy of every man in the station.

"Eye on your files, ladies and gentlemen," He said with a smile, sending his team back to their work. All except for DI Stone, that was. She eyed Keats with frustration and anger as he swanned through the room with Alex.

"Sir," she said, "Can I have a word please?"

"Victoria, I am trying to help our new DCI settle in," Keats said with some annoyance.

"It's important," Victoria hissed through gritted teeth.

Keats hesitated and looked from Victoria to Alex, not quite sure what the best thing was to do. Finally he gave a sigh and turned to Alex. "I'll be with you in five," he said, "Victoria…" he took a few paces towards his office door and glanced back at her. "Well, come on then."

Victoria didn't relish the thought of being alone with Keats in his office but her words of anger couldn't wait so she drew in her breath, made her expression as neutral as she was able to and marched after him with a quick glare in Alex's direction.

Keats closed the door behind them and drew the blind. He folded his arm and peered at Victoria over his spectacles.

"Do you have a problem with Alex, DI Stone?" he asked.

Victoria swallowed, her mouth full of nervous saliva.

"Sir, I have to say something about this new… _appointment,"_ she said that word with some sarcasm, "your methods of recruitment and staffing this department are most irregular. You opened the Hi-Tech Crimes division and brought in that other DCI to run it without going through the proper channels, then the transfer was cancelled almost immediately and the department was dissolved – _then_ the Super asked me to reopen it and get it off the ground while you were on your.." she paused, _"compassionate leave…"_ she hesitated, "and, sir, you were supposed to be out until the week before Christmas to get over the loss of your baby. And now, you've turned up with…" she couldn't think of a polite term for how she viewed Alex, "well …your approach to your _relationship_ with DCI Drake could easily be taken the wrong way."

"Victoria," Keats began firmly, "I am your superior. DCI in charge of this department. I hope you're not questioning the way I run things here."

Victoria's voice wobbled but she stood her ground.

"I don't think it's fair that I've been putting in all the hard graft just to be ousted because you've found a new 'pet project'," she said, "it was the same with your last DCI, the tall guy. He was here one day, asked me for directions to the toilet and I never saw him again!"

"DCI Shoebury turned out to not have what it took for the post," Keats raised his voice and took a threatening step closer.

"Howe do you know DCI Drake will?" Victoria asked him, "You haven't interviewed her or anything. You haven't even cleared it with the superintendent!

"The superintendent trusts my judgement and as my DI so should you," Keats glowered at her, "I don't want to hear any more of this and I don't want to hear one disrespectful word against DCI Drake. Do you understand?"

Victoria glared at him. She was about to give an obedient_ 'yes sir' _but at the last moment she changed her mind. Why _should_ she? She wasn't the one in the wrong.

"I can't let you do this, Sir," she said, "I don't believe you are doing what's best for this department."

"Oh yeah?" Keats's expression began to twist, "and how would you know what's best for this _department,_ hmm? Your skin-tight skirt and flaming, temptress hair? Swanning around the department, leaving a trail of dribble from bug-eyed DCs who want to get into a one-on-one scenario in the interview room with you?" he watched her expression grow nervous and daunted, "because that's what you're here for, Stone. You're a bit of decoration around the office. Any one of fifty men could do your job, but you just add a bit of gloss to the place." He stepped closer still, until his face was just an inch away from hers. "Or is that the problem, _Victoria?"_ he sneered, "is it because I'm the one man in this place who's never wanted to dip into the cookie jar?"

A look of genuine horror crossed Victoria's face.

"What? _No!"_ she cried as she began to tremble.

Keats reached out with one hand and pinned her to the wall, listening to her let out a terrified gasp. He almost closed his eyes in pleasure at that sound.

"That's it, isn't it?" he hissed "The green eyed monster."

"You think I'm jealous?" cried Victoria, "of _what?"_

"DCI Drake," hissed Keats.

"_What?_ Why-"

"_Because,"_ he pushed her shoulder harder against the wall and she let out a yelp of pain, "she's got everything. Everything you want. Brains. Beauty. Guts."

"And you slipping her one?" Victoria hissed, earning her another hard shove against the wall."

"Oh, _that's _it, is it?" spat Keats, "you _want_ a piece do you? You want a piece of _this?"_ Without warning he grabbed her hand and brought it down between his legs where he pressed it to him firmly. "You see? There's nothing there for you. _Nothing._ Not even a hint. You don't have it, Stone." He pushed her hard against the wall one last time then stepped back, letting her drop to the ground in pain and anguish. Smoothing down his tie, he spun on his heels and stepped towards the door, hardly acknowledging the tearful wreck he had reduced his DI to on the floor. "You want to start treating me better than this Victoria," he warned without glancing her way, "you need this job more than Fenchurch West needs you." He reached to open the door, then stopped and allowed it to open for him without laying a hand on it. "I'm taking my new head of Hi-Tech Crimes for lunch," he said, "Have DCI Drake's office ready by the time we get back. I want all your crap, _and_ Simon's, out of there."

As the door closed behind him Victoria's sobs reached an audience of zero. There was no one to hear, no one to care, no one to listen to her crying out in fear and distress. She had felt something wasn't right with her DCI from the moment she met him but it was only now that she had the proof. Inside, her heart and soul were dying from his actions, her devastation at his treatment of her complete and consuming.

She felt trapped and alone, desperate and defeated. She had no interest in Keats, nor in being one of his pet projects, she just wanted to do her job in a station where her hard work would be recognised and rewarded. Instead she was left in pieces by the man who was supposed to lead the team to success. With no one to stop him and nowhere to turn she had no choice but to follow his orders and try to blend into the background so that she never, ever saw a repeat of the actions he'd inflicted upon her.

~x~

"Ready to go?"

Alex glanced up at Keats as he adopted a warm smile during the short process of leaving his office, slamming the door behind him.

"But we only just arrived," she reminded him,

"Lunch time, Alex," Keats told her, "we have a date at a swanky little place just down the road."

Alex raised an eyebrow.

"A date, you say?" she asked a little coyly.

"And by the time we come back," Keats continued, "your office will be up and running, therefore so will your department." He placed a hand on her arm and began to slowly guide her to the doorway. "But first, lunch. Got to keep your strength up, Alex." His smile grew a little more dangerous with every word, "you're going to need it later."

Alex hung on his promise and let it hasten the pace of her heart. She felt herself practically floating towards the door, hooked on his every word. Her morning had been a whirlwind and the afternoon promised more of the same. She only hoped that the afternoon would include adventures of a more personal nature as much as a professional one.

~xXx~

"Stringer – get moving."

The sight of Gene's door swinging open and Gene himself standing in the doorway, fiercely pulling on his gloves gave Kim a jolt of surprise. She almost fell out of her chair from the full force of the anger and determination on his face.

"What's happening?" she asked on high-alert as Gene stepped out of his office, closely followed by Simon.

"He's got her," he said simply.

"Who's got who?" Kim frowned.

"Keats," Gene spat, "he's got Alex."

"We need to get to Fenchurch West," Simon said quickly.

The look on Kim's face was full of anguish and private agony. For the last two weeks she had fought to put Keats's actions behind her. The thought of seeing him for the first time since his dive from the roof filled her with fear and nausea.

"I can't," she whispered.

"That had better not have been an _'I Can't' _that just came from your lips, Metal Mickey," Gene warned her, "don't make me revoke the promotion I haven't had chance to give you yet."

Kim frowned.

"Guv?" she said.

"You're sitting at the wrong desk, _DS Stringer,"_ he said pointedly, "you'll be wanting to move over there," he nodded to a desk that had been empty for some time, "after you've given Jimbo's arse a kicking, that is. That's the condition."

Kim looked at him in open-mouthed surprise. She glanced at Simon to see if he could shed any light on the situation but he gave a shrug. _Well,_ she thought,_ that was better than a 'he's been on the booze' mime at least._ Her demotion to DC upon arrival to 1995 had been one of the bones of contention that she'd had with Gene and her time in his world.

"Th-thank you, Guv," she said, her voice shaking slightly in shock.

"Don't forget you've got to keep your side of the bargain first," Gene told her gruffly, "On yer feet, Kim. It's arse-kicking time."

With just a moment's hesitation Kim got to her feet and grabbed her coat.

"I'm first in the queue," she mumbled and led the charge out the door, with Gene in hot pursuit.

Simon took a deep breath and followed on behind them. Things were moving forward quite suddenly, but somehow it felt to him as though they were also moving on a cataclysmic scale. He couldn't understand it or place it but something felt so much bigger than the small corner they were viewing between them of the situation. _Alex, Keats, Fenchurch West _– why did that feel like just the tip of the iceberg?

"Things are happening," he whispered, his eyes glancing around to check for starlight.

Gene glanced back over his shoulder with a frown.

"Yeah," he mumbled, "hopefully bonfires for jumpers. Get moving, Shoebury."

Simon closed his eyes for a moment and jogged on after them. He wished that he could place the energy but it felt like something far bigger, far greater was taking place than they could comprehend. Something played out across the fabric of the universe, like an exquisite ballet of time. With any luck, he thought to himself, perhaps before too long the whole dance would be revealed. It was time for some of the unravelled threads of the puzzle to start knitting together.


	42. Chapter 21, 2011: Delicatamente

**Chapter Twenty One: 2011**

"What are we going to do?"

Of all three, Robin was the one to voice the question on all their minds. That question was not an easy one to answer.

"We need to speed things up," Alex whispered. She glanced at Kim. "Kim…"

Kim took a deep breath.

"I'm not going to throw you out if you're worried about that," she said.

Alex nodded slowly. It had crossed her mind.

"Thank you," she whispered.

"But," Kim continued, "you can't stay here for much longer. None of us can. Someone's bound to come looking for you sooner or later."

"That guy at your tattoo studio," Robin began, "do you think he'll call the police?"

"John?" Kim laughed, "Believe me, the chances of him even watching the news are approximately zero."

"Did anyone else there see us?" asked Alex.

"I don't think so," Kim shook her head.

Robin threw his hands in the air.

"Shit," he cried, "all those tattooists that I asked about tattooing police dogs! All those people who threw me out! They're all going to be calling the helpline to report me!"

"But none of them know where you are now," Kim tried to reassure him.

Robin folded his arms and pouted.

"It's alright for you," he mumbled dramatically, "you're only harbouring wanted criminals. The next time we appear it's going to be, _'Fears are growing for the mental health of Police inspector Robin Thomas who was seen attempting to tattoo his police dogs earlier today."_ He paused, "and besides, it's _Shoebury-_Thomas now. Get that right, news-guys."

Kim glanced up at him. A flicker of a smile appeared in her eyes.

"You changed your name?" she asked.

Robin nodded slowly.

"By deed poll," he said quietly, "a few days ago."

"Simon did that too," Kim told him quietly.

Despite the worsening of the situation they were in, Robin felt a glowing spread across his cheeks alongside a smile as Kim's revelation began to sink in. There was a part of him that could hardly believe it, while in the same heartbeat it felt just right.

"He did?" he whispered.

Alex couldn't stray from the important matter at hand.

"Kim," she said quietly, "I know we can't stay here for long. Do you think we can have one night here safely? Are you prepared to let us stay?"

Kim nodded.

"Of course, Alex," she said quietly, "and I'll do everything I can to help you work out where to go from here."

"Good," Alex said a little awkwardly. She choked a little on the words, "because I need you, Kim, I really…" she hesitated, her face crumbling at the thought of what she needed to say, what she needed to ask her, Her eyed flicked over to Robin. "Rob?" she said quietly.

Robin looked at her in surprise. No one usually called him that. Only Simon. Hearing someone who felt enough fondness towards him to use that name caught him off guard.

"Yes, Alex?" he said quietly.

Alex bit her lip. She was picking up his habits too.

"I think it might be time for you to go and make that pizza now."

Robin hesitated. He recalled their conversation earlier. He knew what she truly meant. He understood the exchange she needed to have with Kim. Evan's actions had hurried the speed of their plan. Slowly he nodded.

"Are you sure?" he whispered.

Alex tried to smile but it was strained and sad.

"Yes," she whispered.

Robin was shocked to find his eyes starting to mist up with tears. The heightened emotions of the last few days had started to take their toll on him.

"I'll be right through there if you need me," he whispered. He took one step to leave, then thought again and pulled back, wrapped his arms around Alex for a moment and gently kissed her bright, streaked hair, then picked up his bags of ingredients and walked slowly to the kitchen.

Kim stared at Alex in dismay. The emotional response to his declaration of cooking a pizza had come as something of a surprise.

"What the hell kind of pizza is this?" she cried, "suicide pizza?"

Alex looked at her and swallowed.

"Kim," she whispered, "I need to talk to you."

Kim felt her nerves growing.

"What is it?" she whispered.

Alex found her legs growing weak beneath her and she felt herself sinking into the couch. She closed her eyes for a moment and breathed in deeply.

"Kim," she whispered, "I'm so sorry."

Kim sat beside her anxiously.

"For what?" she whispered.

"For what I am about to ask you," Alex said quietly, "for bringing it back."

"What?" Kim asked. She waited for Alex to respond but she couldn't move. "What? You're starting to scare me, Ma'am."

Alex met her eye.

"I need to ask you…." She tried again. When the words failed to come, Kim got to her feet.

"I know," she said quietly, "This might help." She crossed to a wooden cupboard and took out a bottle and a couple of glasses. She held the bottle up for Alex to see. "The Guv's favourite," she said.

Alex gave a little smile.

"A taste of home," she whispered.

Kim returned to the couch, handed Alex a glass and poured her a large measure of scotch then poured one for herself.

"I've always drunk this, ever since I came home," she said quietly, "one of the little things I always did to keep the memory alive." She paused "I always make a toast to you at Christmas," she said quietly, "to absent friends." She looked at Alex who couldn't meet her eye. "What is it, Alex?" she paused. "Come on. This is me. You _know_ me. You can ask me anything."

Alex breathed in and out, then took several sips of her drink. Finally, after gasping a little from the strength of the alcohol she turned back to Kim.

"Keats," she whispered.

Kim's reaction reflected every single reason why Alex had felt so unable to speak that name. Eight years of walls that she had built around those memories began to weaken and fall. Her eyes became dark and her expression empty. The pain that thinking of Keats brought to her killed her so deeply inside that it struck her dumb. When several more moments had passed, Alex finally spoke again.

"Kim" she whispered, "I know. I understand. If there's one thing that I didn't want to remind you of it's anything that happened with him. But I have to, because," her words were starting to come forth faster now, as though she could't hold them back, "because you're the one person who might understand and who can help me work out if this is real or… or just in my head, and…" she tried to catch Kim's stare, "there are answers I need, and you're the only one who has them."

Kim swallowed, her eyes awash with tears that she was stubbornly refusing to allow the privilege of falling.

"What kind of answers?" she whispered.

"Answers about what he did," Alex whispered, "And how he did it. To you," she paused to catch her breath, "…to _both _of us."

Those were the words that did it. Those were the words that brought Kim's stare back to her. A terrible sensation of panic and distress filled Kim's body as the impact of Alex's words started to filter through.

"Oh, _no,"_ she breathed, "Alex, please…. Please tell me he didn't?" Alex's silence and the movement in her throat as she swallowed told Kim all she needed to know. "Oh God, _God_, no…"

Alex felt her eyes close, but she couldn't stop them. It seemed the only way she was going to be able to continue.

"Something happened, Kim," she whispered, "a long time ago, and I… I blocked it out, or _he_ blocked it up in my head… all the way until right now. I just remembered yesterday. I'd been having nightmares, ever since I woke up. They've been flashbacks. Night after night, until finally the truth…" she looked down as something choked in her chest. "It came back to me."

Kim felt a knot in her stomach. Her insides tightened as she began to comprehend what Alex had told her. She stared at her with an angry churning feeling deep within her.

"What do you want to know?" she whispered.

Alex looked her in the eye again but this time her eyes reflected fear, shame and self-loathing for her actions.

"I need to know how it happened," she whispered, "between you and Keats."

"Why do you want to know?" Kim couldn't understand, "what if it makes you feel worse?"

"Believe me, Kim, I don't think that's possible," Alex shook her head slowly, "Kim, I need to know if what happened between the two of you is the same thing that happened to me so many years ago or whether," he hesitated as the words caught in her throat, "or whether I did what I did… of my own choice."

Kim slowly breathed in and out. She felt quite sick suddenly. She wondered for a moment if the milk had been off in her coffee but realised that it was the thought of the man who'd have been able to curdle it with one glare that was making her feel this way.

"It was so long ago, Ma'am," she whispered, "and I have tried so hard to block it out."

Alex's heart began to ache to see what she was putting Kim through.

"I know," she whispered.

Kim looked down. Suddenly she felt like that frightened girl all over again.

"He found me when I was at my lowest," she recalled with a waiver in her voice, "I'd stolen Hunt's scotch and sat in the car park. I was lonely and dejected, and there he was – just at the right moment." She began to pick at a hem on her top. "I told him I was gay, told him right away so that there would be no confusion. He said all he wanted was for my help bringing down Hunt, which," she choked a little, "I still hate myself for."

Alex swallowed.

"You were not the first he asked for help in that department," she whispered, "and you probably won't be the last."

Kim stared at Alex. Something in her eyes told her she understood a little too well.

"You?" she whispered.

Alex nodded slowly. She hated so admit it, hated to remember ever doubting Gene, even for a moment.

"Jim was very persuasive that way," she said quietly, then flinched. _"Keats,"_ she corrected herself.

Kim nodded. She held her glass tightly.

"We went for drinks," she whispered, "he told me what he wanted me to do and claimed he could help me get home. I remember there was a lot of alcohol, but then again, there always _was._ He was always happy to fill my glass."

Alex nodded again.

"It's like he was working from a checklist," she muttered.

Kim looked down.

"When it came to… actually…" she found her sentence trailing off. She couldn't bring herself to say the words. How was she even supposed to put it? _'Doing it'? 'Having sex'? _Or worse than that – '_wanting him'?_ She cleared her throat. Maybe she didn't need to express the specifics. Alex probably knew what she meant. "It wasn't the alcohol, Alex. Remember, I was a self-made laddette, I had lager instead of blood in my veins. It was something else. Like there was something –"

"- In the air?" Alex whispered. She watched Kim nod and her heart sank, "shit."

"I don't know what it was," she whispered, "it changed my head, my heart, my whole body. It clouded me. I couldn't control my body… couldn't control my mind either. And then he looked at me with those eyes –"

"- And that smile," Alex breathed.

"And suddenly I went against twenty-something years of my natural drives to want him," Kim shook her head in anger and disgust at herself. "I _wanted_ him, Ma'am, he didn't force himself on me, he forced himself into my _head_. Made me want him so much it hurt. My body…." She found the words escaping without any control over them. So long she had spent hiding them away, now the seal on the vacuum of her emotions had been broken they flooded out with enormous force, "my body ached for him, every inch of me felt on fire."

There were tears in Alex's eyes now. They were partly for Kim and for all she had been through, but mostly for herself as the possibility of her nightmare being anything other than real began to fade.

"I couldn't control myself," Kim whispered, "I knew it was wrong but I needed him… I wanted him _all the time._ I hated myself for it but he…. He hooked me, like a drug. He reeled me in, fixed me with that stare and put me under a spell."

Alex's stomach churned violently and the thoughts of her nightmare flashed through her mind like a movie.

"You looked at him," she whispered, "and you couldn't say no."

Kim nodded.

"But worse than that…" she began.

Tears filled Alex's eyes.

"You didn't want to," she finished for her.

Kim's own eyes were spilling over as she stared at Alex's crumbling face. She could tell by the look in her eyes that she'd found the answers she was looking for.

"It was the same for you," she whispered, "wasn't it?" she watched Alex as she nodded silently, her lip trembling and the tears starting to burst free, "oh God, Alex, I'm so, so sorry," she whispered.

Alex tried to keep her emptions under control but her guilt and horror burned in her heart and her mind.

"It's true," she whispered.

"Alex, I wish I could take this away from you," Kim whispered.

Alex tried to breathe deeply.

"Did… did he…" she closed her eyes and started again, "do you know if we were the only ones?" she whispered, "or has he done this to anyone else?" Kim's hesitation filled in some blanks and Alex's heart began to sink even deeper. "Oh _fuck,"_ she breathed, "how many times…?"

"There's one other," Kim's eyes began to spill over too, "that I know of, at least."

"Who?" Alex's heart ached at the thought of it. She wasn't even sure she wanted Kim to answer her question, "who was it? Oh, not Susannah, please…?"

Kim shook her head.

"No," she whispered almost inaudibly.

Alex tried to think who else Keats may have come into contact with, who else he could have hooked with his spell but she couldn't think of anyone.

"Who?" Alex whispered.

Kim hesitated, the answer choking her up inside. She started to open her trembling lips to reply as a crash came from the kitchen, scaring them both half to death, followed by Robin's voice calling out, _"Sorry – slight accident with a ladle."_

The guilty look on Kim's face as her eyes darted to the doorway at the sound of Robin's voice make Alex think again.

"It….oh _no_, Kim, it can't be…" she stared at Kim who was nodding silently, her face awash with tears. "No, not," she dropped her voice to an almost inaudible level, _"Simon?"_

"He tried," Kim whispered, choking up, "he tried… he got very close, but he didn't…" she closed her eyes and took a deep breath. It so, _so _painful to think back.

"But Jim – _Keats,"_ Alex whispered, "he's not gay…?"

"Well, _I'm_ not _straight!"_ Kim pointed out, "Alex, Keats had emotions coming back and forth, man and monster fighting it out, he didn't know what he was doing but _something,"_ she flinched as she imparted the secret she'd carried for so long, "something intense passed between those two. It was always there, bubbling away in the background."

"But they didn't – _did_ they?" Alex's stomach was in knots.

Kim's head shook slowly.

"No," she whispered, "at least, not by the time I came home, but," she bit her lip, "I worry about Simon still sometimes."

Alex's eyes darted to the kitchen door for a second.

"What do you mean?"

I was there for another six… maybe seven months after you got back," Kim's words were hard to speak, "and by the time I came home, he wasn't doing well. He was falling apart. He –"she flinched and froze. "I don't know how much I should say."

Alex looked at her in horror.

"You can't leave it there, Kim," she whispered, "come on – if you tell me, maybe I can do something about it when I get back."

"I don't think you even remember that much when you get back," Kim told her softly, "a lot of this… it'll be lost for good."

Alex hesitated. Was that a good thing or a bad thing? The trauma she had been through since she woke wasn't something she wanted plaguing her night and day, but at the same time the thought of not taking back with her the memory of the friendship that Robin and the 2011 edition of Kim had shown her made her sad inside.

"At least I'll hopefully forget the taste of that cabbage soup," she tried to joke but couldn't even raise a smile. She hesitated. "Come on, Kim, please tell me. What happens to him? What happens to Simon?"

Kim's heart ached as she thought about the friend she still missed, so many years on. She gave a sniff, wiped her eyes on her sleeve and took a large gulp from her glass.

"He found it hard," she whispered, "the whole thing. Being apart from Robin. They… they _need_ each other and he doesn't function that well without him."

Alex nodded slowly.

"Robin feels that way too," she whispered.

"He struggled with his job, with the responsibility," Kim continued slowly, "with knowing he's dead, never knowing when or if he'll see Robin again. And he had," she coughed slightly, "_other issues," _she blushed a little awkwardly, "And a really, _really_ crappy jumper." She paused. "I tried to be there for him but," she hesitated, "I wasn't _Robin._ He lost himself a bit. There were the tranquilisers and the constant junk food and some other bad habits he picked up. He didn't care about himself at all any more. And then there's all that _horrible_ 'pub' business…"

Alex frowned.

"_What_ horrible pub business?" she asked.

"And the ridiculous leather jacket phase…."

"The _what?"_

"Lest we forget the Christmas from hell…"

Alex looked at Kim, slightly aghast.

"This is like coming home from holiday and someone trying to strike up a conversation about your favourite TV shows before you've had a chance to catch up on the ones you taped!" she cried.

Kim bit her lip.

"Sorry, Ma'am," she said.

Alex tried to work out how they'd even reached that conversation. Recalling the Keats connection her heart sank a little.

"Kim," she began, "Simon and Keats…"

Kim shook her head slowly.

"He kept trying," she whispered, "but while I was there, he didn't succeed." Kim took a deep breath. "There's no way of knowing what happened after that." She looked a little stricken. "You won't tell Robin?" she panicked.

"No, _no,"_ Alex said quickly, "of course not.." Even knowing Keats had tried to lure Simon in would be enough to kill Robin's heart stone dead, Alex knew that much. She breathed slowly in and out, trying to pull together some composure. Finally she looked back at Kim. "So," she whispered.

"So," Kim repeated.

Alex swallowed.

"Me, you," she paused, "and maybe Simon."

Kim nodded slowly.

"He made us do it," she whispered, "he made us _want_ to."

The reminder sent Alex's expression crumbling once again and she found herself swept up in the arms of Kim who held her while the guilt and the anguish flooded from her system. Her sobbing brought Robin back to the room nervously. He took one look at her and instinctively knew what has caused her tears.

"So it's true?" he whispered.

Kim looked at him and nodded quietly.

"Keats did the same thing to us both," she whispered.

"I will never forgive myself," Alex's broken voice whispered.

As Robin crouched beside her, she found two sets of arms holding her to take away some of the pain she felt, but both Kim and Robin knew that their warm arms and support had a limited effect. The trauma that Alex's memory had unleashed upon her was strong and wild and would torture her soul endlessly.

"It's alright," Robin whispered to her, "it's OK."

But Alex's tears only came back louder and harder. Robin didn't know what was happening to Simon on the other side – and, truly, neither did she. Now the fear that Keats could claim another victim of desire was burning her, her anguish was growing even stronger – if not Simon then somebody else. Someone else he would trap at their most vulnerable, load up with alcohol and turn on that smile – or there would be something in the air.

Scared, tormented and far away from home, Alex yearned for nothing more than to feel safe and warm in Gene's arms, back in her own bed, in her own home. Yet suddenly, that was seeming further away than ever.


	43. Chapter 21, 1995: Furioso

**Chapter Twenty One: 1995**

Alex smiled at Keats through the flowing red liquid that poured into her glass as he topped her up. She played with her newly-cut hair, the sensation of air around her shoulders feeling unusual and different.

"So; haircut, lunch – what do you have planned for this afternoon, Jim?" she asked.

"Work," smiled Keats.

Alex raised an eyebrow. She was genuinely surprised to hear that.

"Oh?"

"Well, that's what you're here for," Keats reminded her, "isn't it?"

Alex hesitated. He seemed to flit from one extreme to the other, from the business-like DCI to the potential suitor. Before she could say anything a waiter appeared beside them

"Are you ready to order?"

Alex glanced up. She'd been so distracted by Keats and their possible plans for the rest of the day that she'd almost forgotten about the menu sitting in front of her, despite the gnawing hunger in her stomach.

"Oh, let me see," she breathed, lifting the menu and opening it quickly, "I'm feeling drawn to pasta today."

Her attention was caught by a little laugh from Keats that brought her eyes up from the array of dish descriptions and caused her to look at him curiously.

"Oh," he pretended his laugh hadn't been intended for that very reason, "sorry, it's just…"

She waited for him to continue but he paused. He seemed to want her to prompt him.

"What?" she asked with a confused smile.

"Well," he began, "don't take this the wrong way, Alex," he continued, "but you're not quite the slim figure you used to be."

Alex felt, in that instant, as though she had been hit with the force of a ten ton truck. Moreover, her expression seemed to suggest the same thing. She stared at Keats, her head instantly replaying that sentence again and again, as though trying to hear something different, but the words were always the same. To Alex it felt as though several minutes passed, when in reality it could only have been three seconds at the most.

"What?" she whispered eventually. A strained smile of disbelief stayed on her face while the rest of it crumbled.

"I've just noticed," Keats continued casually, "there's a bit more all over than there used to be. A few extra inches. Maybe you should stick to salad, eh?" he paused and smiled, "a small salad."

Alex stared at him. Her disbelief at his words was masking any anger or upset that was bubbling under the surface. She tried to keep calm.

"You think I need to," she could hardly choke out the words, _"go on a diet? _In my own _head?"_

"Look, Alex," Keats spread his palms wide and gave a gentle laugh, "don't shoot the messenger. It's just…" he leaned forward to show his sincerity, "I remember you… the _old_ you. I remember how you used to be before Hunt wore you down and took away your spirit and your soul." He drew a little closer still as he reached out to touch the side of her face. "I want to help her come back. The Alex Drake I met so long ago."

Beside them an awkward waiter gave a slightly angered throat-clearing noise and tapped his notepad impatiently with his pen.

"Would you like me to come back, or…?" he asked.

"Uh, no," Keats sat back in his seat, "that's OK. I will have the lobster thermidor, I think. And, Alex?"

Alex stared at him for a moment, too shocked to speak or to fight back against the words he'd spoken. Shakily she looked at her menu. She tried to push away the cruel things Keats had said to her but they wouldn't leave her alone. Gradually she felt her eyes moving away from the pasta section and settling upon the salads.

"I'll, um," she cleared her throat quietly, "I'll just have the green salad," she said quietly."

She looked down as the waiter made notes on their meals and walked away. In her mind she knew that Keats was only saying what she'd been thinking since she woke up in that wreck of a body; that he was a creation of her own subconscious to verbalise all of the faults that she had found and help her to deal with and change them, just as he had helped change her brassy hair.

That didn't stop it from hurting though.

~xXx~

"What exactly are we going to do when we get there?" Simon tried to exercise a note of caution.

"I'm apparently going to kick his arse," Kim reminded him.

"Yeah, but in case the arse-kicking proves not to be the most efficient way of getting Alex back…?" Simon asked.

"Look, Simon," Gene began, "if you're going to work with me you're going to have to understand the concept of going and giving someone a good arse kicking. Sometimes, there is no other way."

As Gene and Kim piled into the Fiat, Simon knew he had no alternative but to sigh and concede this time. Hopefully an alternative to the arse kicking would become apparent over the course of the drive to Fenchurch West.

"Just one question," he began, "if we get there, and _if _we…" he sighed, "_kick his arse,_ and _if_ we get Alex back… even if all those things go to plan…"

Gene gave Simon a withering glance as he got into the passenger seat.

"I hope this is going somewhere, Shoebury," he sighed.

"…Then we_ still_ don't have any idea how to help Alex get home," Simon concluded, "do we?"

Gene ignored that point and turned the key in the ignition.

"Put yer sci-fi brain in and we'll get onto that later," he said, "First let's make sure she's not toasting over the coals already, right?"

With that he pulled out of the car park at breakneck speed causing Simon's ill-advised fry-up to threaten to make an escape.

~xXx~

Alex pushed a piece of lettuce around her plate with her fork. She stared at it as she watched the leaf moving around gracefully on the smooth white china below it and tried to ignore her growling stomach. She couldn't quite bring herself to raise her fork to her mouth and eat any of the unappetising plate of green stuff before her.

Keats glanced at her as he shovelled another forkful of lobster into his mouth with gluttonous enthusiasm. He chewed, savoured and swallowed then asked,

"You not hungry?" He stared at her as she glanced up at him, her face dark and miserable, "look, you're not getting your knickers in a twist about what I said before, are you?" he asked. He leaned forward a little. "It's only natural that you've filled out a bit," he said, "things go south as you get older." He could see her expression growing even grimmer, "and it's not surprising you've packed on the pounds, spending all those years at Fenchurch East with Hunt."

Alex swallowed.

"What do you mean?" she asked, still unable to grasp the concept of there being an _Alex_ there before she arrived, coupled with her growing anger at his digs.

"Put it this way," he began, "how likely do you think it is that someone like Gene Hunt would actually get a woman like you in the real world? He wasn't going to risk losing you once he'd got his claws into you. So he probably encouraged you to… let yourself go a little."

Alex's cheeks grew pink.

"Let myself _go?_" there was anger in her voice.

"It was no skin off his nose if you got a few love handles," Keats's words antagonised her further, "a bit of a spare tyre."

"A _what?" _Alex began to protest but her own insecurity gave his words credence and her hand dropped to her waist involuntarily, feeling the unfamiliar curves that had plagued her since she arrived.

"I'm just saying Hunt probably didn't want other men looking at you," Keats explained further, "shovelled a bit of junk food down your neck and pumped you full of calories. He probably tried to give himself a bit more to grab onto as well." His expression became softer and his voice a little more gentle. "Listen. I don't want you to lose who you used to be," he said, "I want you to be that strong, beautiful Alex Drake I met a long time ago, not the Alex Drake that Hunt changed you into. You've got a brilliant new opportunity, working with me at Fenchurch West, heading up your own department. You've got to put that first right now. Think about all those meetings with top ranking Police Chiefs you'll be having in the next few months. What do you want them to see; Alex Drake, the glamorous detective or Alex Drake, Michelin Man?" He reached across the table and laid his hand over hers. "You've got to look after yourself. Take care of your body and pride in your appearance." He reached up and let his fingers slowly stroke the soft skin of her cheek. Despite her anger over his words, that touch made her shudder inside and a tingle spread through her body. "I've seen you at your best, Alex, and I can help you get there again, but you've got to trust me. Can you do that?" He looked deeply into her eyes. "I can help you to be the way you were. Make you strong again. Strong enough to get home."

His words brought a gasp to her voice and her eyes opened wide.

"Home?" she whispered. How much _did _he know? She was never quite certain of that.

"But you have to trust that I know what's best for you," he reiterated, "and you have to believe that I can help you. Do you trust me?" he stared more intensely at her, _"Alex?"_

She stared back. All his cruel words played back in her mind, the things he'd said gnawed away at her but his eyes made them fade away.

"Yes," she whispered.

"Yes what?"

"Yes, I trust you," she whispered.

Keats caught her eye for one more moment as his mouth twitched into a smile, then he drew back his hand and lifted his fork again.

"I'm glad to hear that, Alex," he said quietly, "because I need trust in my relationships. Nothing can happen without trust." He nodded at her plate. "Eat your lunch. You're going to need as much energy as you can get for this afternoon." He watched her slowly raise her fork and aim it hesitantly towards her plate. "Uh," he interrupted, "you might want to leave the bit with the dressing," he said, pushing some of the leaves aside, "loaded with calories. No telling where that would go."

As he turned his attention back to his lobster, in front of him a woman's heart began to break. There was one little twitch that manifested in his eye. A twitch of something inside him. The tiniest notion that he tried to ignore. Something that tried to tell him his words had been too cruel, so spiteful and terribly uncalled for but that 'something' was easy to ignore as the rest of him won out. He was coming closer to recreating the memory that burned brightly of the Alex he'd met so long ago. Those words were just the means to an end. And besides, he told himself, she would thank him eventually.

~xXx~

Victoria choked back emotions that she was determined not to let show as she scooped up the last of her belongings and put them into the box she'd taken down to clear the room. There were one or two things left from the early preparations for the office when Keats had turned up with another pet project. Drake had already lasted longer than DCI Shoebury. Perhaps the key was not to ask for directions to the toilet, she wondered to herself.

She gave a little gasp as a sob tried to escape. She couldn't block out Keats's actions, as hard as she tried. The feeling as he grasped her hand and pressed it to him played repeatedly through her mind, making bile rise up inside her. In any other job, in any other place she'd have been the first one to make a complaint and cause hell for him, but it wouldn't do any good in the depths of the darkness of Fenchurch West. Keats's words about the super had struck a chord with her. He didn't seem to care what Keats did. It was almost as though Keats was running the show.

What had she done to end up in a place so low? What the hell had she _done?_ She tried to remember why she transferred in the first place but her memory seemed so vague these days that she couldn't remember her first day on the job, or how she'd arrived. She had a faint recollection of scratches and bruises, and someone talking about whiplash but beyond that her memory failed her.

All she knew for certain is that she couldn't have possibly justified the treatment that Keats had subjected her to. It had exploded that day, but there had always been something there. She'd never shaken the fear that there was another, hidden side to him. That side was hidden no longer.

"Good luck, DCI Drake," she hissed angrily as she threw her last pen in the box and hoisted it into her arms, "maybe you'll last longer than the last guy. You'll probably last longer than _I_ will."

With that she flicked her red curls over her shoulder, left the room and closed the basement door behind her.

~xXx~

Alex stared out of the window as Keats drove her back to the station. There was a painful gnawing of hunger inside as her stomach worked on the pathetically small amount of lettuce she'd allowed it to consume. She laid one hand across it and tried to muffle the hungry gurgling sounds that were about to escape at any second. Waking in a body that had been used to indulging in whatever kind of food or portion size took her fancy, no part of her digestive system was pleased with the measly amount she'd put away for lunch.

In contrast, Keats sat back feeling full, smug and satisfied as he drove along.

"Beautiful," he said with a half-smile, "beautiful food, and beautiful company."

Alex frowned a little. He wasn't calling her beautiful when he was busy pointing out her spare tyre.

"Well I'm glad _one_ of us enjoyed it," she mumbled.

"Now, come on," Keats glanced at her, "you surely can't be angry with me for trying to help you make the best of yourself. I'm sure you'll drop that weight in no time, with the exercise you'll be getting."

"I will?" Alex raised an eyebrow as she glanced at him. What kind of exercise did he have in mind, exactly? Her cheeks flushed as she contemplated it. Was he even _interested_ in her in that way? She'd thought so initially but after spending an hour hearing all about her faults she wasn't sure he'd want to partake in roll between the sheets with all her spare tyres. _How many calories did sex burn up, anyway,_ she wondered idly. "What kind of exercise would that be?"

Keats turned to her for just a moment.

"There's a lot of stairs between CID and your office," he said, "You'll soon get in shape running up and down those all day."

Once again, Alex's spirits took a dive.

She stayed quiet on the rest of the journey, trying to block out both the nagging doubts about Keats's intentions and his lengthy critique about his tasty lunch. She felt relieved when they arrived back at Fenchurch West and began to wonder where the nearest vending machine was located. 'Spare tyre' or not, she wasn't going to spend the afternoon hallucinating that her pens were breadsticks.

"What the…" Keats's murmured exclamation caused her to look up, "I don't believe this."

"What?" Alex tried to see whatever he had spotted.

"Looks like we've got a welcoming committee," Keats told her as the sight of a three-strong group of Fenchurch East detectives marched pointedly in their direction. He unfastened his seatbelt and opened the door before Alex even had a chance to process his words.

"_Keats!"_

Like a war cry, Gene's declaration came loudly, full of venom and bile. It was music to Keats's ears. The fury in Hunt's tone sent him practically orgasmic.

"Oh look," he smiled pleasantly, "a field trip from the opposition. Come to see how the big boys do it?"

"The only 'big' thing around here will be your lip when my fist makes contact with it," Gene said angrily, "where is she?"

"I wouldn't know _who_ you are…" Keats began, spinning around as Gene began to march past and round to the passenger side just as Alex stepped cautiously out of the car.

"Alex," Gene began, but her change of appearance halted him in his tracks. He stared at her and so much came back to him. Seeing her the image of her 1983 self gave him a kind of tremble inside. For just a moment he lost all the words he'd been building up to saying and his mouth went dry. "Your hair…" was all he could manage to whisper.

"Which she didn't have done for _your_ benefit," Keats told him crossly, walking around and slipping an arm around her shoulders, "now if you'll excuse us, my new head of Hi-Tech Crimes has a lot of work to do today…"

"Oh really?" another voice snapped as Simon jogged around the car to come to Gene's side, followed by Kim, "funny how you can't seem to find a permanent appointment for that position."

Keats rolled his eyes a little.

"Oh, they're all out in force today, aren't they?" he commented, "Hunt's brought his little protégé! How's the chest doing, Simon?"

Simon's anger rose up inside of him and with an explosive cry and a leap forward he bunched up his fist and prepared to take a swing at him.

"You _bastard,"_ he cried, but Gene caught his fist in mid-air and held him back.

"Simon, no," he scolded, "…_Kim's_ got first arse-kicking rights!"

Keats chuckled.

"And Kimberly as well," he turned to her with a pleasant smile, "it's been a while. Which side are you batting for today?"

"_Right,"_ Kim's own anger followed the example that Simon's had set; her fist drew back and she prepared to fight but Gene held her back too.

"Let me talk to Alex first," he said gruffly, "then his arse is all yours."

"I don't think Alex wants to talk to you, Gene," Keats told him crossly.

"I think we should leave that decision to her, don't you?" Gene spat as he spoke, his anger reaching an epic height.

"I thought my subconscious had finally managed to get rid of you," Alex told him crossly.

"Well maybe yer subconscious needs to shut up and listen," Gene told her crossly, "Right. Cards on the table, we know what's happened. Or we think we do. You got shot in two thousand and eight. You came here, fifteen years ago. Then, you took another bullet to the head and suddenly it's a severe case of the swapsies."

"You're stuck here," Simon explained gently, "and the Alex we know, the one whose body you've woken up in, is probably back in your own time, trying to get back here."

Alex's eyebrows couldn't have risen any higher if she'd had them on a winch.

"What?" she breathed.

"I can't believe some of the shit that comes from what's supposed to be his brain," Keats commented, glaring at Gene.

"It's true, Drake," Gene stared at Alex, "and now we know what's happened, we need to work out how the bleedin' hell to get you home. You go back to Molly, I get my Bols back and we're all home in time for tea. Sound alright to you?"

Alex stared at Gene, aghast She couldn't believe the turn this day was taking.

"I can't _believe_ this," she cried, "I thought I was finally –_ finally_ - getting somewhere and finding a way out of this godforsaken riddle in my head. I thought I'd gotten rid of you, finally_, 'Gene'_!" The air quotes were back. "I thought whatever had been stuck in my mind from those bloody files of Sam Tyler's –"

"There's that name again," Simon said quietly, his eyes bolting at the mention and his curiosity on high alert.

" – about you out of my head so I could focus on building up a scenario that would get me strong and help me to get home instead. But,_ no-o-o-o-o-o-o_," she spun around in a slightly maniacal stance, her eyes wide and her fury escaping through her words, "apparently not! Apparently Sam Tyler's bloody comatose delusions affected me so much that they won't go away! I knew I should have referred him on to someone else! It was all I bloody heard about; every session, every tape, banging on and _on_ about you!" She gave Gene an angry shove, knocking him against the passenger door.

"Mind the car!" Keats cried.

"That was all I heard about for weeks!" she cried, "_Gene Hunt_ this, _Gene Hunt_ that, _Gene Hunt_ shoving him into a blasted filing cabinet!"

"Always with the bloody filing cabinets!" cried Simon, "I told you, you've got a fixation!"

"Gene Hunt dressed as a squirrel…" Alex continued, gaining bewildered looks from Simon and Kim, "Honestly, if I'd heard one more word about you I would have followed him up and pushed him off that roof myself!"

"You do _not_ speak ill of Sam bloody Tyler," Gene told her sternly.

"_He_ did that to someone!" Simon piped up, aiming a finger in Keats's direction. His words caused everyone to stop and stare, not quite following his statement. "Keats," he explained, "pushed someone off a roof."

Keats swallowed and a nervous smile graced his face.

"Don't be stupid," he said with a scared laugh.

"I read it in your files," Simon told him.

"Jim?" Alex looked around at him.

"You can check my file, Alex," Keats told her, "it's not true."

"Not here," Simon shook his head, "out there. In the other world. But like everything else you tried to do, the charges never stuck."

"Maybe because it never happened," Keats's jawline was firm and angry.

"You see what kind of a man you're riding around with?" Gene asked Alex.

"Riding around? Do me a favour. She's working here now," Keats told him.

"I don't remember agreeing to that transfer."

"You didn't have to. She put in for it."

"Her superintendent has put her on long term sick leave and given me three days to prove to him that she's still got all 'er marbles," Gene told him angrily, "I don't think it will look very good on your station's record that you have employed someone that emotionally unbalanced.

"She'd had to have been to go anywhere near _you,"_ Keats told him.

Gene ignored Keats. He didn't matter right then. Not really.

"Alex," he began, "I just want you to _listen_ to me. Forget what you think about me. I know you hate me guts."

"And, believe me, we've all been there," Kim pointed out, earning her a kick in the shin, "_Ow!"_

"And to be honest, I'm not all that fond of you and yer snooty pants right now either. I knew _you_ once, Drake. I knew who you are now and she was a pain in the arse the first time around too. But I fell in love with her. And I want her back. And the only way I'm going to get her back is if we can find out, _somehow_, how to send _you_ back to where you came from."

Alex stared at him. His words seemed to terribly ridiculous but his eyes held such conviction.

"How…" she began but Keats cut her off.

"Oh, come _on _Alex, you're not buying this are you?" he began, "face it, this is something Hunt's read off the back of one of Simon's box sets. Swapping you _round?_ He doesn't have two beans of an idea what he's talking about."

"Think about what I've said," Gene said strongly, "and think about what _he's_ said. I want to get you home, Alex. No offence meant to you, but I want my Bolly back. You can go home to your little girl. I'm offering you help. I want to see you leave. But _him?_ He's giving you jobs and haircuts. Everything to make you stay."

"To make me _stronger,"_ Alex said insistently, "to help me recover and get home."

"No," Gene said firmly, "he wants _you._ He's _always_ wanted you. He wants to trap you in his flame pit and toast you like a bloody brainiac marshmallow."

"It's true, Alex," Kim said gently, "no good can come of you staying here with him."

"You come with us and let us help you home or you go with _him_ and end up stuck here forever," Gene snapped.

"But…" Alex looked from one to the other. Suddenly everything had become so complicated, so _damned_ confusing.

"Think about it, Alex," Simon began, "if you're feeling like this then imagine what it will be like for the _other_ Alex out there; the one who your daughter thinks is her mother, but who might not know her at all."

That seemed to strike a chord with Alex. Her eyes looked dark as her heart fell in her chest.

"My Molly," she whispered quietly.

A hand on her shoulder brought her back to the moment.

"Alex," Keats said quietly, "are you really going to listen to them? Are you going to trust them after everything that's happened? Or are you going to trust me?" he stepped in front of her and looked right into her eyes. "Who picked you up from the curb when your life was in pieces, Alex?" he whispered, "who gave you the hope you were looking for? A job? A new purpose?" He reached out slowly and ran his hand down her face, feeling her soft, freshly cut and dyed hair against his skin. "You trusted me when I told you I had the perfect job for you. You trusted me when I told you how much this look would suit you. You trusted me when I told you I could show you the best night out you'd ever had." He laid his hand against her cheek and gazed into her eyes. "Don't let me down now, Alex," he breathed, "you know in your heart what you need to do."

His gaze locked upon hers and she found herself quite unable to move. Her heart was racing, God it was thumping, and her palms were sweating as her body struggled to cope with the sensations his stare sent through her. She found herself running her tongue along her lips. She felt inexplicably drawn to this man; this mysterious and powerful man who had swept her up the day before and taken her under his wing. For a moment, one delicious moment filled with promise, she caught sight of something in his eye, something that promised action beyond the afternoon of work she had heard about. She almost felt as though his lips were there for the taking and she came a whisker away from leaning forward to seal the moment, but right then Gene's voice came through strong and clear.

"Twelve years ago, a woman by the name of DI Alex Drake took a leap of faith and jumped out of a window," he said, "didn't know where she would land. Didn't even know_ if_ she would land. She jumped out that window to come back to me, and believe it or not that's where she stayed happily ever since. If she can take a leap of faith, then why can't you?"

Alex hesitated. Her eyes broke away from Jim's stare, just for a moment, and turned to the anxious faces behind her. They looked on, urging her to leave his side and to rejoin them, to listen to their words and take them in. But in her heart, the decision had already been made.

She turned away and hung her head.

"I'm sorry," she said quietly, "Jim needs me."

The look on Keats's face as he caught Gene's eye reflected every bit as much satisfaction as when he'd swallowed down that last mouthful of lobster. He was full now. Stuffed with triumph. He had the prize; the trophy Gene had allowed to fall from the cabinet.

"You heard the lady," he said snidely, she's made her decision. Now, if you will excuse me we've got work to do."

Gene stared after her as Keats slipped his arm around her shoulder and began to walk her away. His heart leapt anxiously into his throat.

"You're looking peaky, Alex," he called after her venomously, "I hope he's looking after you. When my Alex comes home I want that body in one piece for her to get back to. And not one burnt piece, either." He caught Keats throwing another sneer over his shoulder and his rage increased. "I'm warning you, Keats. Keep your filthy fucking hands off her! If you touch one hair on her head…"

With a genuine laugh Keats turned around, a smile as broad as the Cheshire cat across his face.

"Already have done," he commented, made a 'scissor' mime with his fingers then gently ran his hand down Alex's new brunette bob. As he worked his way towards the door, an angry Gene turned to Kim.

"Alright, Stringer, arse-kicking time," he commanded.

To both his and Simon's surprise, Kim had intended to take that instruction fairly literally. She took a flying leap towards him, thrust her leg forward and let her foot make a hard, forceful contact with his behind. He howled and stumbled, clutching his backside and ran through the doors with a shocked Alex in tow as Kim rubbed her thigh.

"Kim!" cried Simon, "are you OK?"

"Strained it a bit," Kim hissed, "_ooh_…" she gave a sharp intake of breath as she rubbed it again, while Gene angrily strode towards the building.

"Keats!" he cried, "I'm warning you! You do _not _hurt her!"

"Gene," Simon began, running after him.

"If you hurt her…" Gene yelled.

"_Gene,"_ Simon stood between Gene and the doorway, his arms held out like a lemming blocking the others from passing.

"Get out my way, Shoebury!" Gene barked.

"No!" Simon refused to let him pass.

"Get out my _way,"_ Gene tried to shove him aside but Simon stood his ground and held him back.

"We're on _his_ ground, Gene!" he cried, "You go in there making a scene, what do you think's going to happen? You'll be in the cells before you can say arse-kicking! What use are you going to be to Alex if you're locked up in there?"

"Well I'm no bloody use to her out _here,_ am I?" Gene cried, "She wouldn't even listen to me!"

"Then we'll _show_ her," Simon put his hands on Gene's arms and gripped them firmly to stop him from doing anything foolish. "We'll _show_ her what he's like. If she won't listen to words we'll make her see. We'll make her _see."_

Gene stared at Simon for some time as he panted heavily, the anger stealing the breath from his body. It took him several moments to calm down. When he did, he finally gave a slow nod and pulled his arms from Simon's grasp. He wiped his nose roughly on his sleeve and nodded again.

"Alright," he said quietly, "alright. Enough arse-kicking. I won't do anything stupid."

Simon stepped back a little.

"Good," he said quietly.

An uncomfortable silence fell for a moment in which no one knew quite what to say. It seemed that words had been exhausted for a while. Glances were exchanged, noses wiped, stones kicked and temples rubbed. Finally Gene spoke again, his eyes trained firmly on the ground.

"Gonna need to keep our eye on that one."

Kim and Simon exchanged a glance, then both nodded.

"I agree," Simon said quietly.

"Surveillance?" asked Kim.

Gene breathed in deeply.

"For now," he said, "I trust my left bollock more than I trust that twat."

"Let's… let's go back to the car," Simon tried to organise things a little better, "and we'll plan our next step. We have to do more than keep an eye on Alex. We need to find a way to prove to her that we can help her while Keats just wants to help himself turn into you."

Gene nodded slowly and gave a hefty sigh. He knew Simon was right. With a miserable grunt he began to lead them back to the Fiat where they piled in for a heavy mix of surveillance, planning and lattes. Alex couldn't be left alone with Keats and she couldn't be left to run amok in 1995, not when Gene's Bolly was stuck somewhere way off in the dim and distant future without Gene to watch out for her.

His mind went to her, as it did so often that day. Where was she? _How_ was she? Whoever was there with her, whoever she had on her side, Gene only hoped that they were showing her the same support and friendship that Simon and Kim had offered him during this one time he had truly needed it. Without friends, he realised, he'd have very little left by now. That was the first time he began to realise how important that human quality was – and how that one thing Keats could never achieve might just be the thing to win through and help them to succeed.


	44. Chapter 22, 2011: Obbligato

**Chapter Twenty Two: 2011**

Robin stared at Alex and Kim pushing their slices of pizza around their plates without taking a bite. He sighed.

"I'm really glad I bothered making these now," he mumbled.

Alex sighed and put her napkin on the table.

"I'm sorry, Robin," she said quietly, "I've lost my appetite a bit."

Kim nodded grimly.

"Me too," she whispered."

Their talk of Keats had stolen both their appetites and instilled in their place a strong sense of nausea.

"I can't believe you're turning down the chance to sample my world famous pizza," Robin tried to joke but the atmosphere in the room was anxious and dark. "When you get home, you tell Simon you had the chance and turned it down."

Kim looked at him a little sadly.

"Simon really missed your cooking," she said.

Her words brought a sudden sadness over Robin. He looked down as he lifted the last piece of his pizza.

"I bet," he said quietly. He paused. "Probably the only thing he's missed," he said with a little smile.

Kim shook her head slowly.

"No, it's not," she told him.

The three of them fell silent. For some time the only noise in the room was the sound of Robin munching his pizza and the ticking of the clock on the wall. Eventually Robin eyed up Alex's plate and asked,

"Are you going to eat any of that?"

Alex looked at him a little incredulously.

"You want mine as well?"

"Rather than let it go to waste," Robin said, a little embarrassed.

Alex pushed her plate towards him and leaned back with a sigh. She felt terrible that Robin's hard work had been for nothing but the thought of Keats had been enough to turn her stomach. To her dismay Robin started tucking in as though he hadn't already had a full pizza to himself. For a fairly small man he could certainly put food away. After watching Robin eat and making him feel uncomfortable for a fairly long time, she looked down and drew in a deep breath. There was something else she needed to ask and this time it wasn't Kim who had the answers she needed. She'd already caused one of her friends to feel such terrible anguish and devastation by unleashing memories of the most evil of all men – now she was going to inflict the same fate on the other.

"I've been trying to think this through," she said quietly, "this situation. Work out how to get home." She paused, "I was shot in two thousand and eight by a man called Layton, which sent me into a coma and back in time. I was then shot in nineteen ninety five by Keats and found myself back in this body. The common factor, a gunshot wound to the head."

Robin looked up, mid-mouthful, and gave her an alarmed look.

"I'm not shooting you if that's what you want!" he said in a panic.

Alex rolled her eyes.

"No, _no,"_ she sighed, "I was thinking about the two shootings. The two men involved. Whether either of them could hold the key to getting home."

"How do you mean?" asked Kim.

Alex wasn't sure herself.

"Robin," she began, "what happened to the man who shot me here?"

"Layton?" Robin asked. He sighed and shook his head, "he was never caught."

Alex bit her lip as she watched Robin take another bite.

"And Keats," she said quietly. She noticed the pace of Robin's chewing became very slow indeed. "What happened to Keats?"

The memories of Keats's death at the end of his campaign of torture against Simon killed Robin's appetite stone dead in one moment. His chewing slowed to a halt and he forced himself to swallow his last mouthful down. It hit his stomach and sat there like a lump of concrete.

"Keats," he repeated, "he's dead."

Kim hadn't quite understood what Alex needed to know.

"_He_ can't send you back, Alex," she began, "he'd _definitely_ dead."

"I've seen his grave," Robin added.

"I danced on it," Kim told them.

"I let one of the dogs take a dump on it," Robin topped Kim's revelation, garnering nods of approval.

"Nice," Kim commented.

"That's… _lovely_ to know, Robin," Alex said tactfully, "but, no… I know he's dead." She glanced down, "it's what happened _before_ that I need to know about."

Robin hesitated. He didn't like the sound of where this was going.

"What do you mean?" he asked quietly.

"I mean," Alex whispered, "I need to know what happened with Keats and Simon after Simon came back," she said quietly, "I need to know what happened after Keats woke up from his coma."

Robin stared down at his plate. He began to wish he hadn't been such a glutton. The food wasn't sitting all that well now that the subject of Keats had been brought to the table.

"We told you all about that," he said quietly.

"Not the full story, you didn't," Alex reminded him, "and some of it has been lost in these stupid memory gaps."

Robin stared at his plate and took a deep breath. He poked his pizza. Anything to avoid looking Alex in the eye.

"What do you need to know?" he asked quietly.

Alex hesitated. She wasn't even sure herself.

"What do you know about his life after his coma?" she asked quietly.

Robin rubbed his temples. He'd tried hard to block Keats out of his mind. He didn't want to bring that subject back to the foreground.

"I know he went crazy," he said, "he'd been comatose for four years. Took about that long again to get back to some semblance of a normal life. He was moved around constantly in his job, so resentful at missing out on the career he thought he was due that he used to…" he stopped and closed his eyes. "There are stories of his misdemeanours all over the internet on news sites. All kinds of acts of violence and…" he shook his head, "charges were always dropped. Even for manslaughter."

"Manslaughter?" Alex's mouth fell open.

"He pushed someone off a roof," Robin added in air quotes, _"'allegedly'."_

"How alleged can that be?" cried Kim, "either he did or he didn't."

"Keats is a slippery bastard," Robin explained.

"That is true," Kim nodded.

Eventually he found a post that suited him," Robin said bitterly, "he was in charge of the administration of the mental health of the police force, nationwide. Some idiot thought it was a good idea for every counselling session, every psyche evaluation, every assessment and appraisal to land on his desk. It all went through him. He spent years trying to trace Simon. He couldn't remember his name or anything else about him but when his counselling session filtered through…" he hung his head miserably. "And the worst part was, I made him see that counsellor. I was worried about him, he was behaving so strangely and having all these nightmares. I told him he needed help."

"Robin, you weren't to know," Alex told him quietly.

"Doesn't stop me regretting it every single day," Robin said quietly. He sighed deeply and stared at the remains of Alex's pizza. "He must have been stalking Simon for weeks. He waited for the time to be right, then he swooped in and struck when Simon was at his most vulnerable."

"I'm noticing a pattern there," Kim said grimly.

"He'd been drinking," Robin continued, "And Simon doesn't drink." There was a sudden guffaw from Kim who visibly spluttered with laughter. Robin glanced at her nervously. "What?"

Kim slammed her hand over her mouth and tried to turn her laugh into a cough.

"Sorry," she spluttered, "must have swallowed a fly."

Robin wasn't convinced.

"What?" he asked again, "Is there something I should know?"

Alex glanced at Kim's slightly panicked expression and realised a cover-up was in order.

"Robin, what did Keats do?" she asked quickly, "Simon was… evasive." She paused, "and even the things he did tell us, I'm not sure how much I recall."

Robin closed his eyes. This wasn't a topic he wanted to talk about, even though he knew anything that could help Alex was worth trying.

"He was waiting for him," he said quietly, "I don't know if he knew where Simon was going or whether he was just in the right place at the right time. He brought Simon back to mine… Simon was so off his face he didn't even recognise him. He drugged him, stripped him, put him to bed and set up the room just right." The pizza felt like molten lava in his chest now. "He made me think Simon had been unfaithful and made Simon think," he flinched; the thought of the word making his pizza come close to escaping. "Simon thought he'd been raped."

With a dubious sense of surprise Robin realised that was the first time either he or Simon had managed to find the strength to say that word. For so long it had been done in mutterings, in vague terms, using silence to fill the place where that word should lay. He exhaled loudly and closed his eyes. It felt strange to let that word go after so very long. When he opened his eyes again he found Alex and Kim staring at him with, he presumed, the same expression that he'd had on his face when he hugged Alex earlier. He decided to move on quickly.

"That was almost the end of us," he said, "but we were stronger than he was. It was a bluff, a fucking set up, and once we both realised what happened we found the truth about him together. Finding out that Keats was real… well," he glanced at Alex, "it gave Simon the courage to find out if _you _were real too."

"And I was," she gave a tiny smile.

"He went to see you, but someone else was on their way too."

Alex looked down.

"Three guesses," she sighed.

"That's when Simon saved your life," he said, "and killed Keats." He put his hand to his head. "Oh, that was some crazy kind of shit right there."

"Did Simon get in trouble for what happened with Keats?" Alex asked.

Robin shook his head.

"CCTV captured everything," he said, "It was all over the news. He was a hero." He paused and scratched his head. "Simon could never get his mind around that one. There were interviews, that Dispatches thing… there was some kind of shoe advertising deal in the pipeline at some point." He paused as his expression became grim again. "When they searched Keats's flat they found all kinds. Date rape drugs, psychological assessments, this… _wall_ of photos of Simon. _And_ me!" He shook his head slightly. "He was deranged. Insane. He'd been following him for so long. It looked like he'd followed me too. He knew everything about us. It was awful. _Awful."_

"What happened to his flat?" Alex asked quietly.

"Still standing," Robin shrugged, "the police took a lot of stuff from there. Simon and I went to see it the day after it was raided. It was pretty freaky, Alex."

"But who owns the flat now?" Alex asked.

Robin gave a little shrug.

"No one. He didn't have any next of kin. No one wanted to buy the place, knowing who'd lived there."

"Is it left empty?" asked Alex.

"It's still got all his crap in it," said Robin, "including the…" he turned rather pale suddenly and put his hand to his mouth.

Alex looked on in alarm.

"What?" she whispered.

Robin swallowed hard and got to his feet, heaving slightly. He walked to the sink and stood beside it, _just in case._ Breathing hard, he finally managed to gasp out,

"_The Andrew Ridgeley autograph."_

"Oh fuck," gasped Alex.

"Holy shit!" cried Kim.

They both gained the same pallor that Robin's skin had taken on.

"I'm sorry," Robin said quietly, "I didn't mean to bring back that memory."

Alex put her hand to her head. She wasn't sure she liked where her thoughts were heading and knew Kim and Robin weren't going to like them any more than she did but she had to voice them.

"I think I need to see it," she whispered.

Robin looked at her in alarm.

"The _autograph?"_ he breathed in horror as his stomach lurched.

"_No!"_ cried Alex, "the _flat."_ She paused. "Keats's flat."

Robin's eyes bolted.

"What? _Why?"_ he demanded.

Alex wasn't even sure herself. She breathed deeply.

"If there's anything there, "she whispered, "any clue to how he sent me here from ninety five, any clue how to get back home, then I need to find it."

"Alex," Robin began, "this is the… the _interim_ Keats. He hadn't even been back to the nineties yet. He didn't know he was going to shoot you in the head."

"But I can't shake this feeling," Alex urged him, "my instincts are telling me that I need to find out as much as I can about him. About _both_ of the men who shot me. Maybe then I can find a clue, a hint of something. Because I am running on empty in my head. I can't think about this for much longer. I just know I need to get home."

Robin shook his head.

"I went there once," he whispered, "I'm not going again."

"Even if it will help Alex get home?" asked Kim.

"I don't think that it can," Robin insisted.

"Please, Robin," Alex said urgently, it's not just about that." She hesitated as her heart began to beat faster. "It's about what happened. My nightmare. It's about needing to know more about Keats. I need to exorcise that thought, Robin. I need to face it head on. And since I can't face Keats, going there is the closest I can get."

Robin shook his head.

"I think you should leave anything to do with Keats well enough alone," he said, "for your own safety."

"What about my _sanity?"_ Alex whispered.

Kim had been watching them, deep in thought. Now finally, she spoke.

"I think… I think I would like to go too," she whispered.

"What?" cried Robin, "you can't be serious, Kim."

"I need to face it too," Kim whispered, "and if I don't do it now… with people I trust… with people who understand," she said pointedly, "then I never will."

Robin looked down. He shook his head slowly.

"I don't want to go anywhere near that place again," he said quietly, "not after what he did to Simon."

Alex's eyes began to look tearful.

"Robin," she whispered, "he only _faked _what he did to Simon. He _actually_ violated us." She watched him look down further. "We need to do this." She only hoped that was still factually accurate after the things Kim had told her earlier.

Robin hesitated while he breathed in deeply. The thought of facing that place without Simon beside him sent a chill down his spine and gave the pizza another opportunity to escape. But the look in Alex's eyes slowly made him think again.

"We'd have to go under cover of darkness," he said quietly.

Alex nodded.

"Of course."

"I think we'd be safer around four or five in the morning," Robin continued, "we'd only encounter the milkman instead of the drunks turning out the pub we'd meet if we left earlier."

Alex nodded again.

"Very wise," she whispered.

Robin gave a pained sign.

"OK," he whispered, "We'll go. We'll go tonight. Well… _tomorrow._ Early."

Alex let out a breath she didn't even realise she'd been holding.

"_Thank_ you," she whispered.

"Do you remember where it is?" Kim asked.

Robin nodded.

"It's on Bridge Street," he said, "the Falcon building."

An icy sensation fell over Alex's heart.

"Number six," she whispered.

"Yes," Robin began, then paused. "How did you know?"

Alex's face reflected a mixture of shock, anxiety and trepidation.

"He's kept the same flat," she whispered, "all that time."

"What do you mean?" Robin asked.

Alex felt cold.

"It's the same flat he had when he went into a coma," she said quietly, "the same one he goes back to and squats in when he arrives in nineteen ninety five. All that time… he's always had the same place." She shuddered as that fact started to sink in. "Like a marker in time."

Robin was starting to see more credence to their reasons for wanting to go now. The thought of it still chilled him to the bone but it seemed like the one constant; something that had remained through the ages.

"We'll go at five," he whispered, "we'll try to get some sleep, rebuild some energy and then we'll go. All of us."

Those were the last words any of them spoke for some time, the anxiety of their intentions bringing a silence to their lips. None of them could explain why but now the plan was starting to form they felt they were just a shade closer to getting Alex home. None of them knew what they could ever hope to find that might lead to her safe journey back to 1995 but the Keats connection was too strong to ignore.

Their daytrip the following morning would be traumatic for all of them, but at least they would be together. Alex could only hope that, wherever the _other _Alex was right then, she had someone to help her find her own way home too.


	45. Chapter 22, 1995: Passionato

_**Author's Note: **_

_**Due to an unpleasant anonymous review of this chapter I would like to ask you to remember that I have said, from the beginning, that this story was going to be dark but that all would work out in the end. I would hate for you to read this far and then to walk away on the basis of one chapter without ever reaching the part where light chases away the darkness and the evil unravels. And for anyone who IS feeling this story is too dark for them, I think the darkness peaks in this chapter and thereafter the light begins to filter through. Not that there will not still be darker times, but this is the darkest that it will reach.**_

_**I also ask that, if you feel the same way, please read the response I have put up as a review of that chapter myself which I hope will answer a few things and help you to look at it in the context of the entire story arc, not by singling out the content of one or two chapters.**_

_**One dark story after three that were lighter and brighter should not set a precident, nor pigeonhole me, and I hope that nobody feels anything here has been gratuitous or without value in the full context of the story.**_

_**To those of you who are reading, I really appreciate your time and support. x x**_

**~xXx~**

**Chapter Twenty Two: 1995**

Gene stared out of the window and pulled his flask from his pocket. He was glad he'd had the foresight to refill it earlier. He took a swig and checked his watch. Three hours had passed since his confrontation with Keats and so far there had been no sign of him, or of Alex, emerging from the station. Parked opposite the car park exit, he had the prime position for keeping his eyes fixed on the gates.

"Come on, Jimbo," he muttered, "you're going to have to go home sooner or later."

Kim sat in the back, contemplating a game of I-Spy. Surveillance had never been one of her strong points.

"How long are we going to sit here for?" she asked.

"Until the rat crawls out the sewer," Gene replied, rescrewing the cap on his flask and sliding it back in his pocket.

The passenger door opened and Simon walloped himself into the seat, accompanied by the smell of food.

"Here," he said, handing out boxes.

Gene glanced at him.

"More pizza?" he frowned.

"You don't have to eat it if you don't want to," Simon told him, "you can starve if you want."

"Pizza is fine once in a while," Gene told him, "two in twenty four hours is pushing it, even for me,"

"_Hhwwwww-hwwwlllll-heeee-yooooourrr-hunnn-hennnn__,"_ Simon told him, his mouth already full of melted cheese and crust.

"That again for those of us who don't speak 'Pizza'?" Gene prompted.

Simon chewed quickly, gulped it down and said,

"Well I'll have yours if you don't want it."

"You've turned into a bottomless pit today," Gene muttered. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet, then took some money from within and held it over the backseat.

"Kim," he said, "I need me afternoon latte."

Kim stared at the money. Then she glanced at Gene.

"There is not enough money in your entire wallet to make me set foot in your old haunt and keep my dignity intact," she said.

"It's next to the off licence," Gene reminded her, "could do with a bottle of scotch too."

Kim hesitated. She glanced at the money, then grabbed it before Gene changed his mind.

"Now you're talking," she muttered, grasping it and climbing out the car. The slamming of the door caused Simon to choke a little on his pizza. When he cleared his throat and regained his composure he glanced at Gene.

"You sent Kim all the way to Latte Land?" he said, "by foot?"

"Walk will do her good," said Gene, "build up her leg muscles for the next arse kicking." He drew his flask from his pocket again. "Besides, we need to have a talk, Shoebury."

"Gene, I already know how babies are made and it's not something I'm likely to partake in," Simon told him.

"About Keats," Gene specified.

Simon paused with a slice of pizza in mid air. He frowned and returned it to the box.

"I think I just lost my appetite," he said.

"Sorry," Gene said unconvincingly.

Simon took a deep breath.

"The following conversation is not going to involve roofs is it?" he asked, "or my nipples?"

Gene shook his head, staring ahead at the station before them.

"No," he said, "it won't."

Simon nodded slowly.

"Carry on then."

Gene held his flask securely, aware he might need to take a swig at any moment. He closed his eyes, just for a second.

"What you said about showing Alex what he's really like," he said, "…how are we gonna do that then?"

Simon's face fell a little. He'd been thinking of little else for the last three hours.

"I don't know," he said quietly.

"She didn't listen to anything we told her," Gene reminded him, "so she's going to have to see it with her own eyes."

Simon rubbed his head, his hair forming curls around his fingers. He sighed deeply.

"Alright," he said, "alright, here – I've got one."

"One what?" frowned Gene.

"An idea," said Simon, "think about Keats. What does he do when he wants to show someone something they're rather not contemplate?"

Gene hesitated.

"Like his Andrew Ridgeley autograph?" he asked.

Simon's face grew disturbed and the pizza in his stomach thought about making a hasty exit.

"Ew, _no!" _he cried, "I'm talking about… _important_ things. Things people might not want to see. Things other people might not want revealed." He closed his eyes for a moment. "Video tapes."

Gene glanced at him.

"You mean his necrophiliac collection?" he asked, "because he's got those hidden away in his station."

"No, no," Simon shook his head, "I was thinking more along the lines of…" he hesitated and flinched. It wasn't something he wanted to bring up with Gene but there didn't seem to be any other way. "Like, when he wants to expose something about someone. To get someone on his side. Like… like showing someone that a person they know has another side to them."

He looked down awkwardly as Gene's eyes turned to him fully.

"You mean that tape of me again," He said, "don't you?" He watched Simon's silent expression. "He pulled that one out the hat a few times." A heavy silence hung over them both for a while. Eventually Gene broke it. "You still hold that against me, don't you?"

"No," Simon said quickly.

"I can't change the past, Shoebury."

"I know."

"And I can't wipe out what you saw, but I hope you know me better than that by now."

"Gene, I don't hold it against you," Simon told him, "I know it was a long time ago and you're not the same person now." He paused. "But _seeing_ something… that's a powerful thing. That's in my head forever." He hesitated. "If we could get something like that in Alex's head forever – something about Keats. Something she couldn't deny."

"Funnily enough I haven't got any of Jimbo's holiday videos in me personal collection," Gene told him.

"There has to be something somewhere," said Simon, "think about it – how much does that man get away with? Are you telling me _none_ of it's on tape?" he paused. "The tape we watched. The one of his death."

Gene glanced at him.

"I don't think footage of me shooting him in the head is going to win me any favours with Drake," he said,

"No, no, before that," Simon told him, "he grabbed Susannah. He tried to steal her life from her. She was screaming out in pain. That's all on tape."

Gene considered for a moment. It didn't seem like enough but it could be a start.

"I don't know where his snuff video is now," He said.

"I do," said Simon, "I've got it. At home."

Gene raised an eyebrow.

"Watch it when you need a bit of cheering up, do you?"

Simon sighed.

"I took it from Kim's hospital room after I –" he stopped short of saying 'came down from the roof'. He didn't want to mention that. ""When I was trying to find Keats after he took a flying leap. "

"Still not sure she'll believe us on the basis of one tape," said Gene, drinking from his flask.

Simon sighed deeply. Gene was right, there had to be more. He was sure there had to be more. He leaned against the window. "Alright," he said, "can we look at this situation from another angle?"

"What d'you mean?"

"If we can't show Alex what he's like, can we get Keats on _our_ side?"

Gene looked at Simon as though he'd just suggested skinny-dipping in the Thames.

"What do you suggest, Simon?" he frowned, "send him a bunch of flowers? A box of chocolates?"

"That human side," Simon said, "he came so close. So very close. When he watched the video, it came right out."

"And went back in again like a rat to a skirting board," Gene reminded him.

"So maybe we try again," Simon told him, "and keep trying until it comes back long enough to get him to help us."

Gene shook his head.

"There's not enough man left in there to help us," he said, "there's too much monster to fight."

Simon sighed deeply.

"He was almost _there,_ Gene," he said insistently, "he was so close to being human again, I swear it. We almost did it once, maybe we can do it again."

"Why are you so obsessed with making 'im human, anyway Shoebury?" Gene asked.

"I'm not," Simon shook his head, "I just know it's in there. We've seen it. We've _all_ seen it." He looked away. "If there is a human in there somewhere then we need to help it come forth, Gene. If _we_ don't do it, who will?"

"Simon," Gene began a little tiredly, "even when the human bit does go for a walk you only get the trailers, you never get to see the full feature film."

"I still have to try," Simon said a little despondently.

Gene sipped from his flash and stared out the window.

"I think you're chasing rainbows there, son," he said.

Simon gave him a sideways glance.

"Is that a dig at my sexuality?" he asked.

Gene sighed and rolled his eyes.

"Stand down, Peter Tatchell," he said, "not everything's about that."

Simon looked down.

"Sorry," he mumbled. His mind went back to Keats and the thought of his buried human side. During his assignations with Kim it seemed it had been increasingly to the fore, but ever since his leap from the hospital roof it appeared buried more deeply than ever.

"Maybe there's another way to undo the monster in him," he said quietly. He turned to Gene. "If we worked out how he became that way, perhaps? Surely he just started the same as you." He paused, "the same as me." There was still a part of him that was reluctant to admit his situation and his role in the world. "Surely he would never have been given that kind of power if he was evil from the word go? There must have been a point that things changed. A point where he became corrupted."

Gene swigged from his flask again and noticed Simon's eyes were on it. He offered it a little tentatively and it came as no surprise when Simon knocked it back. He gave a sigh.

"No," he began, "he wouldn't have started like this."

"Was he like this when you first met him?" Simon awaited Gene's response but he seemed hesitant. "What did he seem like to you at first?" he paused. "Because you must have known one way or the other, Gene. You must have felt something." He looked down as his voice grew strained. "Because I know you feel stuff like that. I've started feeling it too. Like facts that are just there, in your head." He felt a darkness growing inside of his chest. "Things you don't always want to know. Like, looking at someone and knowing. Knowing they're dead." The darkness began to spread through his body. "And not always, but _sometimes_… sometimes you see how it happened. You look at them, and you see it. You _feel_ it inside." He knew he'd gone off on a tangent but he didn't care. "I hate it, Gene. I really do. I hate knowing. It doesn't happen with everyone, but suddenly, I'll be talking to someone, and it will come to me. And I'll feel it, right here." He bunched up his fist and pressed it to his chest. "And this is just the start, isn't it?" he looked to Gene at last. "It'll get worse, won't it? It'll get stronger. The longer I stay here the more I become like you. Like Alex." He stared at the station. "Like _him."_ He felt nausea rising inside him. "What if that's what did it? What if it was the pressure of the power? Having all that knowledge? The stuff you know and feel?" he looked at Gene with a terrified innocence on his face. "What if that happens to me?"

Gene stared at Simon for a few moments in silence. He drank from his flask and took a deep breath.

"First of all," he said, "there's more chance of me joining the Royal Ballet Company than you turning into Jimbo mark two." He noted a tiny flicker of a smile on Simon's face, probably considering the minor impossibility of Gene squeezing into a leotard. "Secondly, yeah," he swigged from his flask. "It will get worse." He paused. "Before it gets better." He stared ahead again. It was easier to talk about certain things when his eyes was focussed elsewhere. "You learn to control it. You only let things through when you need to. Course, sometimes you can control it too well and forget…" he sighed. "Bolly stopped me from doing that again." He took another sip. "It takes time to get used to it, but it'll come. And in the meanwhile," he held the flask toward Simon again, "you just have to find ways to block it out.

Simon stared at the flask hesitantly. He glanced at Gene, then back at the vessel in his hand before finally taking it, a little shakily, and drinking from it. The harsh liquid still didn't taste any better to him but it wasn't choking him as much any more. He closed his eyes and swallowed hard, hoping the alcohol would do its promised job, then handed it back to Gene.

"Thanks," he said quietly.

Gene screwed the lid back on his flask and tucked it away.

"You need to stop thinking so much," he said, "puts too many lines on yer forehead. And to answer the first question, Shoebury," he began, a little more gruffly, "no. Keats wasn't born this way. Something changed him." He didn't want to think back to 1983 but he couldn't stop the thoughts of his arrival from returning. "When he arrived he was just a man. Like you, or me. The something changed." He looked a little grumpier. "He was always a bastard, but at least he was a human bastard."

"What changed?" Simon asked, glancing around.

Gene shook his head slowly.

"The longer he stuck his nose into my business, the more twisted he became," he said, "I wasn't doing as well as I could have been at remembering…._stuff,"_ he said, "so there's probably a lot I'm overlooking."

"Maybe I can find out," Simon said quietly, almost more to himself than to Gene, "maybe there's a way I can find out what changed him. Maybe then we've got more of a chance of changing him back."

Gene looked at him grimly.

"Simon, stop."

Simon frowned.

"Stop what?"

"If you're looking for a project then this isn't it," said Gene.

"I don't understand what you mean."

"If you're looking for something to focus on, to get yer mind off missing Robin, to block out where you are, then take up knitting or learn Esperanto. Don't take on Keats as a pet project. It's too dangerous." He pulled out his flask again. "I've already lost Drake in the depths of the West, not going to let him get his stinking claws into you too."

"He won't," Simon said quietly but his voice held little conviction.

Gene stared at him. It occurred to him that something seemed a little different about his appearance since he'd returned with the pizzas.

"You've bulked up a bit suddenly, Shoebury," he commented, "what happened? Joined a gym on the way to get the pizzas?" He noticed a red glow spreading across Simon's cheeks. "You've got that bloody jumper on under yer coat, haven't you?"

"Well it's bloody cold!" Simon protested, "they said it's going to get to minus five! I'm not spending the night freezing my arse off in your car in my shirt sleeves!"

Gene turned back to the window to watch for Keats again.

"And eat that bloody pizza or get it out me car," Gene told him, "I'm not getting pepperoni on me dashboard."

Simon frowned, opened his box up, took out a slice and began munching again.

"It's not a patch on Robin's," he said under his breath. They both fell silent for a few moments, where the only sounds were Simon munching and Gene muttering insults under his breath about Keats and where he was intending to stick his pencils. Finally something occurred to Simon. He swallowed his mouthful, cleared his throat and looked at Gene. "There is… one more question I need to ask…" he began.

Gene looked at him sideways.

"Hmm?"

Simon hesitated.

"It's about something Alex said."

"What?"

"The squirrel thing."

Gene glared at Simon.

"Mention it again and I'll bury your nuts somewhere you'll never find them," he warned.

Simon looked away a little nervously.

"That's fair enough," he said.

~xXx~

A bead of sweat ran down Alex's cleavage as she blinked and tried harder to focus. The heat in the room had been growing steadily worse in the last few hours. The dimly lit, skeletal beginnings of an office that she'd been led to hadn't lived up to her expectations. She'd pictured a bright, glossy working environment such as the one Keats had been working in and had shown off proudly to her the day before. Being led to the basement hadn't been an anticipated development to her role.

"_Make sure you don't do down the wrong staircase and end up in Archiving,"_ Keats had warned her as he led her down the rickety stairs. The room looked as though it had been long abandoned and never really used but Keats insisted he'd been keeping it for 'the right person.' It was a dubious honour as far as Alex could see.

She felt her stomach contract as it gave another painful groan. She'd been listening to little else for the last hour. Her gnawing hunger made it difficult to concentrate on anything else. She'd spent her time in the basement so far fantasizing about food. Food, and air conditioning. She pulled her clothing away from her neck and tried to fan herself with a file that she'd read three times and not taken in a single detail from. Between the heat and the hunger she couldn't get her mind on the job.

She caught a distorted glimpse of her reflection in the shade of the lamp on her desk. The clothes Keats had picked out for her to replace her make-do outfit borrowed from his wardrobe had been deliberately chosen to accentuate all the places on her body that she had an inch to pinch, she was sure. Her chest practically spilled out of her top as she fanned it again. She reluctantly shed her jacket. Despite the heat she'd kept it on as long as possible to mask the areas where her alleged _'love handles'_ were on display.

Keats's words had set off a chain reaction in her mind and the small flaws she perceived around her body had now become mammoth faults in her mind. Her paranoia about her appearance was growing, and so was her mental image of her body proportions.

She felt a little faint as she got to her feet. The atmosphere in the room was thick and stuffy and there were no windows to let in the air. Her head was spinning. Was it from the heat, the lack of food or maybe from the wine? She wasn't altogether certain, but she as sure as hell didn't feel right.

She walked slowly to the bin to drop in a couple of balls of scrunched up paper that were the result of some of her many lapses of concentration that day and paused as she glanced at the contents of the receptacle. Slowly she pulled out a desk label and glanced at the name. _DCI Simon Shoebury._ Why did that name sound familiar? Wasn't he that strange, lanky man who'd arrived with Gene and the weird punk girl earlier on?

She dropped the block hastily as she heard footsteps coming down the stairs outside and smoothed down her clothes, sucked in her stomach and stood up straight to await the arrival of the man she knew was on his way.

"How's my new DCI's first afternoon coming along?" Keats's smile was broad and self-satisfied. He seemed to float to the bottom of the stairs as though his feet barely touched the ground. Alex tried to appear as composed and eloquent as possible but her head was swimming.

"Fine," she whispered, "I'm doing fine." The hollow growl of her stomach caused a pink glow to spread across her cheeks as Keats laughed gently. She turned around and took a hurried step away in embarrassment and shame. Back home she could regularly go without eating from morning until night if she was caught up in her work without noticing. Her 1995 body seemed to want food on the hour, every hour.

"Oh boy, that was a good lunch," Keats pointed out with a satisfied sigh to drill the message home, "I'm stuffed to the gills." He watched her carefully as she moved around, shuffling papers loudly. "Never mind. I'm sure the work will help take your mind off your diet."

"I'm finding it a little hard to concentrate actually," Alex said quietly, the strain appearing in her voice as a dizzy spell began.

"You're not looking quite yourself," Keats pointed out, "I hope you're feeling OK."

"It's this room," Alex pulled her top away again and began to fan herself before she realised she wasn't alone this time and stopped abruptly before she gave him an eyeful, "Isn't there any way of getting some air down here, Jim?"

"Sorry, no can do," Keats gave an apologetic shrug, "the ventilation isn't working properly. Fumes and all sorts, Can't switch that on." He closed the door behind him and moved toward her.

_Great_, thought Alex, _let's make it even stuffier in here._

"Can I at least get some water down here," she asked.

"Why don't you loosen your top a bit?" Keats suggested,"open a couple of buttons."

"I would do but then I'd be arrested for indecent exposure," Alex said quietly. She put her hand to her head as it started to swim. "I could _really_ do with some water, Jim." She sighed and began to walk unsteadily to the door. "Where's the nearest water cooler?"

"Let me," said Keats, opening the door and heading back out of the furnace below stairs. Alex took the opportunity to breathe in as much fresh air from the doorway as she could while simultaneously flapping the top of her clothing as fast as possible to hurry a little air down between her perspiring bosoms. Keats's return to the doorway a few moments later saw her looking flushed and unsteady.

"There," he said, a glass of water held aloft which Alex took and drank thirstily. When she had finished she gave a gasp as she tried to get back her breath and realised she hadn't even said thank you. "I appreciated that, Jim," she whispered, "thanks."

"That'll be all that wine you had at lunch," Keats told her.

"I only had two glasses," Alex said quietly. Her vision began to blur and she struggled to keep Keats In focus. "I think I need to get out of this office for a while," she whispered, "I'm feeling a little fa-"

Halfway through her word she tried to take a step toward the open doorway but her head seemed to grow so heavy that it flopped forward, taking the rest of her body with it as she fell directly into Keats's waiting arms.

"Woah, Alex, careful," he said, the tiniest laugh sounding in his voice, "I've got you. I've got you."

Alex felt her eyes close and heard the smashing of glass as her hand opened, dropping its contents.

"Jim," she whispered, desperately trying to tell him that something was wrong but she couldn't prise another word from her lips before everything went black and her body grew heavy in his arms.

~xXx~

There were snatches of sound. A voice. He was saying her name.

Her head moved slowly from side to side as though heavily intoxicated and her breath was fast and shallow. Her eyelids felt so heavy but somehow she managed to open them and when she did she could just make out the outline of Keats standing before her, staring at her.

"_Sir,"_ she found herself addressing him formally as she struggled to take control her body or her words.

"Alex?" he looked into her eyes, "are you OK?"

Alex leaned back. She was in a chair. How had she gotten there? Had he put her there?

"What happened?" she breathed,

"You passed out," he sounded less concerned and almost business-like, "must get maintenance to fix the air conditioning. Don't want this happening every day."

She focused a little more clearly now but her head felt fuzzy.

"I think I was dreaming," she whispered, "about you."

She saw him smile. Or was it a smirk? Her vision was still so burred it was hard to know for sure.

"A sweet dream, I hope?" he asked. She felt his fingers around the buttons of her blouse.

"Jim, what -?" she began but her body felt so heavy it seemed like too much effort to protest.

"I'm trying to help you, Alex," Keats's voice was softer now, "Just loosening your clothes, OK? Help you cool down a bit."

As his fingers travelled down her body she felt a breath of cool air against her chest. Her eyes gained a little more focus and she stared at him, watched his face as he looked up at her once again.

"I don't feel well," she whispered.

Keats reached up to feel her forehead as though taking her temperature. She awaited his next words, expecting him to make a comment but instead his hand closed gently against her face and slowly travelled down her cheek. The motion made her shudder and draw in a breath of surprise. There was a look in his eyes she hadn't seen before. She couldn't explain it but it was holding her, drawing her in. It filled her with an electric energy she couldn't remember feeling before.

"You see, Alex?" his voice was gentle, "I told you I would take care of you." He moved a little closer. "You need someone to look after you." He paused, "Don't you?"

Alex tried to sit up in the chair a little straighter but her head still spun. Was this a dream? She felt so strange.

"Something's wrong," she whispered.

"Shh," Keats ran his fingers down her cheek again. Her skin felt hot to the touch. "I'm here to help you, Alex. I'm here to take care of you." He looked deep into her eyes. "I've left you out there for so long. For far too long. Watched Hunt destroying you, piece by piece." He breathed in deeply as his heart began to beat with a pace he'd never felt before. "You don't remember what it was like before. You don't remember what _you_ were like. You were strong, Alex. Beautiful. Proud. You had morals and dignity. Hunt took away everything you held dear."

He flinched as a hint of a memory returned to him. He remembered another basement, another hot night, another heavy, laden atmosphere. He remembered her falling into his arms. The memory escaped from the vault he'd locked it away in for so long. He was good at that – hiding things. Hiding them from himself. _Lock up the memories in the archives and move on to the next thing._ It was just what he did. What he had to do. The only way to survive.

Bit sometimes it was good to go back and unpack those memories.

He saw her staring at him. He saw something in her eyes. Alongside the disorientation there was a growing fire that he'd been cultivating carefully since he picked her up from the pavement just the day before. It made him glow inside with anticipation and as he exhaled heavily a subtle stirring occurred at his groin. He closed his eyes just for a moment.

"You deserve so much better, Alex," he whispered, "Hunt has never treated you the way you deserve to be treated. Never touched you the way you deserved to be touched.

"I don't want_ Hunt,"_ Alex breathed, "I never have."

"But you _did,"_ Keats told her.

"No…"

"before _you_ came here. _She_ wanted him. He had her under his thumb. He destroyed her. Destroyed _you._ Look at the state of you when you arrived, Alex. That was Hunt's doing. But _you…_" he gave a breathy sigh. "You have the chance to start all over again. With me." He stared into her eyes, his thumb pressed to her cheek. "You said you trusted me, Alex."

Alex couldn't tear her gaze away from his hypnotic, entrancing stare. She swallowed and tried to whisper a reply but her fascination with him stole the words from her lips. Almost as though she wasn't in control of her own actions her hand stretched out and her fingers laid against the side of his cheek. She felt his skin; the stubble, the heat. It drew her eyes closed for a moment.

"I do," her breath was short and fast

"How _much_ do you trust me?"

She couldn't answer his question. She was struck dumb by his strength, his eyes and his magnetic attraction. Recalling how he left her on the doorstep just the night before, she feared a repeat of that moment. She worried that closing her eyes and hoping for more would lead to disappointment and a thirst that she couldn't quench. But her desperation took over from her fears and as her eyes closed she started to lean towards him.

This time she faced no disappointment. No hesitation. This time she felt his mouth pressed against hers, his lips seeking the same desperate exhilaration that the look in his eyes had made her yearn for. The kiss turned from light and gentle to deep and frantic. Before Alex could get her bearings she felt his hands grasp her cheeks roughly, pulling her closer. Her hands wrapped around his face and wandered into his hair; her fingers slipped into his dark waves and explored them with the desperate lust of someone who hadn't known the intimacy and affection of another in such a very, very long time.

"_Jim –"_ she breathed his name before she could stop herself. Her body ached and yearned for this. Her head was still fuzzy and clouded. There was an element of confusion in her mind and she wondered idly if she was dreaming, but if she was she didn't want to wake up. No one had touched her the way his hands were exploring her body. No one had made her feel on fire. Not in so many years.

The last buttons of her were blouse ripped away and the zip was released from her skirt as he grasped her body and pulled her to her feet. She noted silently that for all his comments about her figure he couldn't seem to keep his hands away from it now. He grasped her firmly around the waist, just where his earlier jibes had been focused and for a moment she flinched. Knowing how badly he thought of her _spare tyre_ she awaited the inevitable; the moment he would recoil from her body and leave her in frustrated devastation.

"If you don't –" she whispered, but his forceful kiss stopped her as she spoke. She felt him pushing her, moving her across the room where suddenly she realised he was lifting her somewhere. The cold wood of her desk met her skin. For a moment there was a sense of shock – was she really going to do this? It was all she had thought about since the night before, but it felt so unreal. So hazy, so fuzzy.

She let out a gasp as wild electricity flowed through her body. His hands grasped the material of her knickers and she closed her eyes as he slipped them down her legs and tossed them to the ground. His hands slipped across her stomach and settled at her hips. As she opened her eyes she saw him like a silhouette, his coat shielding him from the harsh light on the ceiling. His eyes gazed at her from the other side of frame and glass and she became aware that he was lacking any clothes on the lower half of his body. When had that happened? She wasn't sure. She felt as though she was floating in and out, like a dream she couldn't quite recall.

"Alex," he breathed her name, "I've waited a long time for this."

Alex's body screamed for action. Her need was wild and crazy as hormones surged through her body and his touch sent every inch of her on fire. She threw back her head and her mouth fell open in a low moan as the moment she'd been waiting for arrived. She felt him grasp her hips firmly as he entered, every movement rough and hard. The desk rubbed against her back, scratching her and stinging her but she hardly felt a thing. All she could feel was the sensations building inside of her; between her legs, around her heart, the butterflies in her stomach and the need to scream and let forth the pent-up desire and need that were aching for release.

"Oh Alex," Keats's tone was darker now, "if you only knew."

Alex's desperation was so strong that she blocked out the doubt his words were casting. Her body needed this. She needed to be touched, needed _so _much more. She laid back and closed her eyes, concentrating on the sensations he brought to her and not on his voice or the questions his words were bringing to mind.

"Wait," the tiny part of her that clung to her common sense drew a note of caution from her, "we can't – it's not safe…"

"_Shhh,"_ he raised one hand to her face for a moment, stroking down her hair as he pressed in deeper, "what's the harm, Alex?" his mile and his eyes were hungry and wanton, "what does it matter if it's all in here?" he tapped the side of her head as she let out a gasp, "I'm just in your mind, you told me yourself." His hot breath burned her ear as he whispered, "give yourself what you want just this once."

She lost herself to that moment. His words had spoken right to the part of her that knew this world existed only in her mind. She wasn't going to waste the opportunity for one crazy moment that no one else would ever know about. She wasn't going to waste the experience of a whole life to lead inside her head. Sam bloody Tyler might have wasted his coma thinking about test cards and Gene Hunt in a squirrel costume; Alex wasn't going to make the same mistake.

"_So many years…"_

Keats's voice came out of nowhere, interrupting her appreciation of the sensations his actions wreaked upon her. His movements became harder, rougher and stronger now.

"…_so many, long, empty years…"_

She was almost there now. So, so close, she could almost reach out and touch it. He moved faster and drew in his breath as he listened to her let out a cry.

"…_I've waited to have you…"_

With one final hard thrust he found the release that he'd been fighting for.

"…_again."_

That final word came just as Alex's climax hit its peak and could have been lost in the moment, but as his motion came to an end and she lay, exhausted and panting on the desk, it floated back through her head over and over.

'Again'.

"What?" her word was whispered and low as her eyes opened slowly and her vision grew more blurred than before. She looked around tiredly, trying to focus on the silhouette roughly pulling on his trousers across the other side of the room. "What do… _Jim?"_ she whispered, "what did you mean…. _again_?" She waited as her eyes closed and her body fell slowly back against the desk but no reply came. He had no response for her. Her question meant nothing to him. Before she could ask again, something overcame her and she found herself drifting into a dark, deep and dreamless slumber.

X

When she finally woke again, time had passed. Her clothes lay asunder across the floor and her body was sticky with perspiration and the result of their illicit moment born of heat and confusion. She slowly drew herself upright, her body quivering and her head swimming.

Trembling, shaking, she slipped from the desk and began to dress as fast as she could. Inside her mind there was still a part of her that wondered if it had all been a dream, even though the evidence showed otherwise, but beyond that there was a fear and a doubt; a nagging worry planted there by one little word;

'Again'.

As she pulled up her skirt and fastened the zip, that word sent a shudder through her. She couldn't explain it – it seemed to innocuous, but somehow it had planted the tiniest seed of doubt in her mind, a seed she could already feel starting to grow.

She fastened her blouse and breathed deeply as she heard footsteps heading her way. She closed her eyes for a moment at the sound of Keats's voice asking,

"_Ready to go home, Alex?"_

She turned to him. He looked natural. Normal, as though nothing had even happened. Why was he so calm and cool? Has it all been in her mind?

"Yes," she whispered shakily, "_please."_

Despite everything she felt, she had no choice but to trust him. He'd given her so much already – more than she'd bargained for – she had to keep up her belief in him lest her precarious psychosis could fall apart. She glanced back at the desk as she followed him from the basement, closing the door behind them. She was glad to leave the room behind, and with it the memory of something she could never be sure wasn't just a dream. Her mind reeled and her body shook to think of it, but something strange had occurred there. It was something she couldn't explain. Something that lay heavily in the air.

As she moved slowly up the stairs the temperature and the atmosphere faded away and she began to feel a little more like herself again but her strange memories of the afternoon wouldn't fade with them.

"I want to go home," she whispered.

Her words were quiet, but her need had never been stronger. If this was all in her head then her mind seemed a forbidding, possibly dangerous place to be.


	46. Chapter 23, 2011: Calore

_**Author's Note: **_

_**I added the following note to the previous chapter for anyone who had not read it yet. I feel it is important to reiterate this:**_

_**Due to an unpleasant anonymous review of the previous chapter I would like to just say I have pointed out, from the beginning, that this story was going to be dark but that all would work out in the end. I would hate for you to read this far and then to walk away on the basis of one chapter without ever reaching the part where light chases away the darkness and the evil is unravelled. And for anyone who IS feeling this story is too dark for them, I think the darkness peaks in the previous chapter and thereafter the light begins to filter through. Not that there will not still be darker times, but this is the darkest that it will reach.**_

_**I also ask that, if you DO feel that way, please read the response I have put up as a review of that chapter myself which I hope will answer a few things and help to look at it in the context of the entire story arc, not by singling out the content of one or two chapters. **__**One dark story after three that were lighter and brighter should not set a precedent, nor pigeonhole the stories I'm writing, and I truly hope that nobody feels anything here has been gratuitous or without value in the full context of the story.**_

_**Please also remember how much is smoke and mirrors. A lot of truth has yet to be told.**_

_**To those of you who are reading and enjoying the ride, I really appreciate your time and support and I hope you will follow this story to the end x x**_

**~xXx~**

**Chapter Twenty Three: 2011**

"I feel like I'm tucking the boys in for the night," Kim commented as she issued her guests with spare toothbrushes and found some night attire for Alex.

"You must be missing your family," Alex said a little sadly.

Kim nodded slowly.

"They're only away a couple of nights but it feels so strange without them here," she said. She lumped a dressing gown and some pyjamas at Alex. "You two can have my bed. I feel weird sleeping in there when Linda's away."

Robin nodded. He could identify with that. He'd slept on the couch for weeks after Simon's death.

"Will you be OK on the sofa?" he asked, feeling awkward about their host slumming it for the night.

"I've got the big TV and the drinks cabinet," she pointed out, "What more could a girl want?"

There was a strange kind of buzz and energy as Alex and Robin got ready for bed. It felt a bit like being on a sleepover, far away from home. Nothing was familiar, everything was strange and exciting. The buzz helped them to bury the darkness of the purpose behind it and the kind ofday that lay ahead for them the other side of midnight.

Robin allowed himself a private moment as he pulled on the shirt that Alex had been wearing for much of the day. It was one of Simon's old shirts and since Kim wasn't likely to have anything suitable he decided to wear it to bed. It felt right somehow. A little weird, but right. He was halfway through buttoning it up when Alex arrived back from the bathroom in Kim's pyjamas. They were a little short in the leg but a fetching shade of purple.

"I feel like I've spent the last few days at a fancy dress party," she commented, "I wish I had my own clothes back."

Robin finished buttoning Simon's shirt and climbed into bed a little awkwardly

"This is a first," he said, feeling an unexpected blush arrive on his face, "I've never shared a bed with a woman before."

"I'll try not to hog the sheets," Alex told him, "…do you have a 'side'?"

Robin smoothed down the duvet.

"I'm in it," he said, taking up the right hand side of the bed, "you?"

"Looks like we're compatible," she smiled.

"In some respects," Robin laughed.

Alex folded back the covers and climbed in the other side. Shaking the pillows a little, she glanced at Robin.

"How are you feeling?" she asked.

"Well, I think I've got heartburn coming on…" Robin began but Alex sighed and shook her head.

"I mean about tomorrow," she explained.

Robin glanced down. A hefty sigh escaped from his lips without him realising it.

"I'm absolutely bloody terrified;" he said quietly, "the thought of going back gives me chills." He rubbed his chest, "I think that's what's given me heartburn, actually."

"So not the two pizzas then?" Alex asked.

"One and three quarters," Robin corrected as though it made any difference. He fluffed his pillow a little then fell back hard against it, staring at the ceiling. "Alex?" he said quietly.

Alex sank into her own pillow and glanced around.

"Hmm?"

Robin gave her a slightly strained smile.

"I'm going to miss you," he said quietly.

Alex's smile reflected the same emotions. She nodded slowly and felt a surprising sense of sadness. Something inside her told het that her time in 2011 was drawing to a close and with it her friendship with Robin would have to draw to a close too, at least until some fine day his papers would land on Gene's desk.

"Me too," she said quietly.

She reached behind her for the cord on the lamp and turned out the light. In the darkness both closed their eyes and hoped that sleep would come and sweep them away.

Fifty percent of the bed's inhabitants were successful.

X

Robin turned over for the fifteenth time and sighed. He knew Alex was asleep because he'd heard a gentle snore and had listened to her muttering about Gene. It was something about not spilling his latte in the bed, as far as he could tell. He was just relieved it wasn't anything of a more personal nature.

His mind was racing with memories of Keats's flat. Simon had been so deeply affected and disorientated by the experience that he'd managed to block out most of the event but Robin remembered every moment in vivid detail. The image that stuck in his mind was the shocking wall of photographs; shots of him and Simon just walking to the shops, or to work, or smiling and laughing. There was even a photo of Simon's old iPhone.

He gave an uncomfortable exclamation and sat up as his indigestion made itself known. He'd have given anything for a dose of that milk of magnesia now. Slowly he slipped his feet out of bed and tiptoed out of the room to Kim's bathroom. He hunted through her cupboards for anything resembling an antacid but found nothing of interest so he decided to try the kitchen instead. He walked slowly down the stairs and tried to sneak through the lounge without disturbing Kim but as he made a vaguely comedic _'creeping'_ motion a voice in the darkness said,

"I'm not asleep."

"Kim?" Robin glanced around as his heart thumped with shock. In the dim, flickering light of the television he saw her sitting on the couch, holding a glass of something alcoholic.

"What are you doing up?" she asked.

Robin felt a little embarrassed standing in front of a near stranger with his hairy legs on display and tried to hang back in the shadows.

"Got indigestion," he mumbled awkwardly, "I was looking for something to help."

"Sorry," Kim said apologetically, "I don't think I have anything for that."

"Shit," Robin sighed. He decided to overcome his embarrassment and sank onto the couch beside her. "Bloody Keats. Just thinking about him gives me heartburn."

"You worrying about tomorrow?" Kim asked.

Robin nodded.

"You too?" he asked.

Kim nodded.

"Bricking it," she said quietly.

Robin stared absently at the images on the news without really taking them in. He picked a little at the collar of Simon's old shirt with his fingers.

"Kim, I'm sorry we burst in on your life," he said quietly.

"Hey, that's fine," He could hear a smile in Kim's voice even though he didn't turn to look at her, "believe it or not, it's been good to see Alex. And you," she added quickly, "no matter what the circumstances." She paused and leaned back into the softness of the couch. "Poor Alex," she said quietly.

Robin nodded.

"She'd been through hell," he said quietly, "I had the shock of my life when she turned up on my doorstep. Fell through the door – literally, _fell_ through the door. She had nowhere else to go, came to find me." He bit his lip. "I knew something wasn't right. Bloody Evan." He rubbed his head. "I should have tried to help her sooner. I had a bad feeling – a really bad feeling – but I thought it was in my head. I should have trusted my gut."

"It's not always that easy to go with your instincts," Kim pointed out.

Robin looked down.

"Ain't that the truth," he sighed.

Kim sipped her drink. She could almost have been back in nineteen ninety five, she thought. Robin reminded her so much of Simon, if she closed her eyes she could have been sharing a late-night chat with her one-time flatmate.

"I'm glad you both found me," she said quietly. She waited for Robin to reply but he seemed awfully quiet. She looked at him, the flickering light of the TV casting shadows and highlights over his features. "You and Alex seem to have bonded," she commented.

Robin gave a distant smile.

"It's funny," he said quietly, "I was only in ninety five for three days but those days have stuck with me, so vividly, it feels like I was there for a lifetime. Alex…" he sighed. "It makes me feel a little like being there again." He paused. "Since she turned up on my doorstep, it's been the first time I've felt alive since I woke up."

Kim looked at him a little cautiously.

"Don't get too attached, Robin," she warned.

"What do you mean?" Robin frowned.

"She's going home," Kim said delicately, "she's not going to be here forever."

Robin chewed on his lip. He'd been trying not to think about that.

"I know that, Kim," he whispered, "I hadn't forgotten."

"It's easy to form emotional attachments when you're in a desperate situation like this," Kim told him.

Robin frowned.

"Now you're bloody _talking_ like her," he frowned.

"It's just, I know she must feel like your last link with Simon," Kim continued, "but don't end up getting into an emotional tangle you can't get out of."

Robin looked at Kim as though she was talking gobbledygook.

"I'm trying to help her get home!" he cried, "she's lost, she's scared and she'd vulnerable."

"So are you," Kim pointed out, "how long has Simon been gone? Four… five months?" She looked at him as sadness crossed his face. "I know you must be lonely too. Looking for someone to latch onto."

"I'm not latching onto anyone," Robin frowned.

Kim paused and gave a sigh. She put her hand to her head and rocked back and forth a little.

"Shit," she sighed, "You know what?" She paused and glanced at a confused Robin. "I think I'm having a mind blip. I keep thinking I'm talking to Simon. You're so much like him, you know." She noted a tiny smile on Robin's face. "Maybe I've had too much of this," she lifted her glass and finished it off.

Robin looked at her anxiously.

"Why did you laugh earlier?" he asked, "when I said Simon didn't drink?" He watched Kim's face grow dark and guilty. "Are you saying he started drinking after I came home?"

Kim hesitated. She didn't want to say anything to scare Robin but didn't want to lie either. Eventually she got to her feet and walked slowly to the drinks cabinet to fetch some dutch courage of her own.

"Hanging around with Hunt can teach you a few bad habits," she said quietly, "but can I remind you that when I brought your letter at the New Year you had a full glass of the stuff on the go?"

Robin gave a nervous smile.

"I wouldn't mind some of that now to be honest," he whispered. He'd meant it half-jokingly but didn't object as he watched Kim rooting around for another glass. "I know. I know how that must have looked. I know how _I_ must have looked. But I had nothing then. I'd lost everything." A glass appeared in front of him which he took a little nervously and drank from quickly. The liquid burned on the way down but brought him relief elsewhere. "Simon was dead. I had no job. Prison was looming. I was about to leave the land of the living." He took another gulp and closed his eyes, gasping a little. When the stinging in his throat calmed down he took a deep breath. "Then you came with Simon's letter, and then Alex woke up… I was exonerated… reinstated…" He looked down. "And then Alex appeared at my door. And here I am. On the run, drinking, wearing a dead-man's clothes and sleeping in a bed with a woman." He paused and gave a strange laugh which Kim echoed. It all seemed so ridiculous in a way, like a farcical comedy. Suddenly things became less amusing as the television caught Robin's eye. _"Shit! _Turn the sound up."

Kim grabbed the remote and turned up the volume as an image of Robin appeared in the corner of the screen.

"…_Fears are growing for the mental stability of Police Inspector Robin Thomas tonight after this footage was released of him attempting to persuade a tattooist to give one of his police dogs a tattoo."_

On the screen, CCTV footage of a punky woman throwing him out of a tattoo studio played along with subtitles that said;_"Can you go and ask the tattooists if they'd be willing to tattoo my police dogs?" _running along the bottom of the screen.

"Oh, they showed the one with the _girl!"_ Robin cried in despair, "All those huge guys with muscles and massive beards and they had to show the one with the girl!"

The footage concluded with Robin's unceremonious dumping onto the pavement outside along with subtitles_, "And stay out!"_

"_Shit,"_ Robin downed the rest of his scotch, spluttered and put his head in his hands.

Kim bit her lip, torn between balking in horror at Robin being in deeper trouble now and laughing at the sight of him being thrown onto the street by a girl half his size. She took the initiative and refilled his glass, aware she was probably not helping the situation but it seemed like the natural thing to do.

"Us tattooists can be a feisty bunch," she said, trying to lessen his shame.

"_And footage had also been released of a woman thought to be the missing Detective Inspector Alex Drake. Drake had recently awoken from a long coma and there are fears for her safety as she is shown here abusing a self-service check out in a convenience store."_

Footage of Alex's argument with the appliance graced the screen and Robin drank a lot of alcohol in a very short space of time.

"We're doomed," he managed to gasp. He looked nervously at Kim. "Now they've got that footage we can't even go back to Simon's. They're bound to find out that's where his old flat is. They'll probably be searching it by now."

Kim looked at him a little nervously. She hated to admit it but the scotch had gone to her head.

"Disguise?" she suggested, "Got some of Alex's hair dye left. Come on, you'd look good with streaks!"

"Stick your streaks up your arse," Robin muttered staring at the screen.

"Come on, I'm sure you had highlights in ninety five," said Kim.

"I woke up with those!" Robin protested, "I didn't put them there! I looked like an idiot in ninety five. Woke up with a bloody Damon Albarn makeover."

"Rather that than a Jarvis Cocker one," Kim commented.

Finally Robin smiled.

"Malcolm seemed like a strange man," he commented.

"Putting it mildly," said Kim.

Robin let out a deep and anxious sigh.

"What am I going to do?" he asked, "I don't even have a change of clothes to hide my identity."

Kim sipped her drink.

"There's only one thing for it," she said.

"What?"

Kim kept her expression neutral.

"We'll have to put you in a wig and dress you as a woman."

"Try it and you'll be dressing as one of my police dogs," Robin threatened. He gave her a tired smile as he finished his drink. He closed his eyes for a second. He couldn't believe he'd just downed two glasses of scotch in ten minutes, footage or no footage. He burped, sat his glass on the floor and sighed. "My transformation into DCI Hunt is apparently complete," he mumbled, getting to his feet a little unsteadily. He weaved to the door and looked back at Kim. I'd better try to sleep," he mumbled, "maybe the drink'll knock me out."

"By the sound of your voice you'll be lucky to make it up the stairs."

Robin gave her a little smile. The image of the news weighed heavily on his mind but he'd already resigned himself to their situation becoming more desperate. There was nothing he could do about that.

"Night, Kim," he said quietly.

"Goodnight, Robin."

Slowly, carefully, Robin made his way along the hall and began to climb the stairs. His legs were definitely finding it hard to keep to a straight path. He thought there was a strange echo from his footsteps ringing through his head from the alcohol but as he glanced up he saw Alex walking towards him.

"Robin, _there_ you are," she whispered.

"What are you doing up?" Robin asked, eyeing her a little strangely as she began to float around in his field of vision.

"I woke up hungry," Alex said apologetically, "should have had that pizza after all. I was going to get a snack. What are you doing up?"

Robin sighed.

"Anxiety, heartburn, insomnia, confusion, all of the above," he said quietly.

Alex hesitated.

"Are you alright?" she asked, "you seem a little…" she hesitated, "…pissed."

Robin looked a little guilty.

"Kim gave me scotch," he said.

"I see." Alex hesitated. "Was that a good idea?"

"Probably not," said Robin, "but at least I might get some sleep now."

Alex gave him a slightly awkward smile. He'd done such a good job of staying strong but his front was wavering now.

"I hope so," she said quietly. They both continued to walking, crossing on the stairs. "Goodnight, Robin."

Robin hesitated, then gave her a kiss on the top of the head.

"Goodnight," he said quietly.

"What was that for?" asked Alex.

Robin looked a little sad.

"To say thank you, I guess," he said.

"What for?"

Robin shook his head slightly.

"I don't know," he said. He paused. "Yes I do." He hesitated. "For making me feel alive."

Alex hesitated. She wasn't sure how to respond to that. Eventually she smiled again and nodded, then turned and continued her journey down the stairs. As she reached the lounge she found Kim still awake and staring at the television where footage of her self-checkout disaster played again.

"Oh _no,"_ she whispered, "not that."

Kim glanced up and smiled.

"I thought you were asleep," she said.

"I was," Alex sighed, "I just woke up needing a snack."

"Help yourself to anything in the fridge," said Kim, "except Linda's face cream."

Alex hesitated for a second, then decided to ignore it and go on her food-hunting mission. She found an apple and decided that would do for now. Shining it against her pyjamas she re-joined Kim in the lounge.

"Has the coverage been too bad?" she asked nervously.

Kim looked at her sympathetically.

"Between you and the checkout and Robin getting police dogs tattooed you look like a pair of total idiots," she said, realising a second too late that the alcohol had filtered out her moral code, "I mean…" she cleared her throat, "it's not looking good."

Alex frowned a little, then eased up on her stare and bit into her apple. She ate silently for a little while, staring at the television set as Evan made an _emotional appeal_ and almost choking on a mouthful as the caption labelled him, _Evan White: Solicitor and Beard Model_. As the reality of the situation grew in her mind she thought about what life was going to be life for the other Alex if she managed to return to the body she was currently inhabiting. The world was going to think she was a complete numbskull with the strangest friends on the planet.

In the same heartbeat, she wondered what trouble the other Alex was making for her in 1995.

She developed a deep sinking feeling. For the first time in a few hours she began to recall how very much she missed Gene. How deeply she longed for him again. The traumatic discussions they'd faced earlier that night had consumed her mind for a while but now she couldn't stop her thoughts straying to him and her desperate need to return to him.

Her hand strayed down to her stomach where her fingers moved back and forth over the smooth, unblemished skin. She didn't know it was possible to yearn for a scar. Her eternal link with Gene was gone. As much as she knew that scar hurt him to see or to even think of she also knew that it was a connection to him that she would always have.

She closed her eyes. A question came into her head from her heart. It was a question she'd come so close to asking earlier in the day but she'd stopped herself. Now, as she felt the ticking of the clock, she couldn't hold it back any longer.

"Kim," she said quickly, "You brought your tattooing things home with you, didn't you?"

Kim glanced at her curiously.

"Yeah, why?"

Alex hesitated.

"Can you tattoo anywhere?" she asked.

"You can only tattoo in properly licenced studios," Kim informed her.

Alex bit her lip.

"Theoretically. Theoretically, could you tattoo someone? Here? Now?"

Kim frowned.

"After two glasses of scotch?"

"Your hands are as steady as a rock," Alex commented.

Kim looked at her hands, then back at Alex.

"Why are you so interested" she asked quietly.

Alex took a deep breath. She feared what she was about to ask. She feared the pain, she feared the process but her fear of losing her connection hurt her far more than that.

"I have a favour to ask you Kim," she whispered.

Kim looked at her curiously,

"What… kind of a favour?" she asked.

Alex took a deep breath.

"An eternal one," she whispered.

~xXx~

"I could get into so much trouble for this," Kim said as she ran her whirring needle through the tiny pot of ink, "tattooing on unlicensed premises, under influence of alcohol… breaks every part of my tattooist's oath."

"You don't have a tattooist's oath," Alex said with a nervous smile.

"That's beside the point," Kim told her. She looked at Alex. "Lay back and try to relax. The more nervous you are, the more it will hurt."

"Great, tell me that while my terror levels are through the roof," Alex said.

Kim tucked a paper towel into the top of Alex's pyjama bottoms to protect them, then checked the location of the outline on her stomach. "Are you sure this is what you want?"

Alex nodded determinedly.

"I'm sure," she said quietly.

Kim still had reservations but Alex had a look in her eye that she couldn't say no to. Slowly she brought the needle down to her skin and got to work.

X

Alex stared at her reflection in the mirror, the side of her pyjama top hitched up to take a closer look. Her fingers itched to reach down and touch the perfect circle that Kim had etched onto her flawless stomach but even the air was stinging her raw skin so she didn't dare just yet. It was just the right size and shape, so small but so clear to see. No one would ever know what that represented to her. No one would ever guess. A scar from a lifetime away that she could never carry over with her, now recreated with ink and friendship rather than a bullet. The tiny letter G in the centre sealed its meaning. She felt a strange relief wash over her. Just having that touch of home, that connection, it made her feel so much closer to Gene and his world.

While she desperately wanted to return home and, as Kim had told her, she knew she would get there eventually she also knew that if she ever returned to this body she would want that reminder eternally.

"Kim," she whispered, "thank you. I can't tell you how much this means to me."

Kim stood behind her and smiled. Despite her reservations, she could almost feel what a difference she'd made to Alex.

"Don't forget what I told you about keeping it clean and moisturised," she advised.

"Yes mum," Alex teased.

Kim smiled.

"Come on," she said, "I'll dress it and give you some tattoo gunk."

Alex wasn't sure she liked the sound of tattoo gunk but if it helped the healing of her ink then she was prepared to give it a go.

~xXx~

Robin sat up in bed, his head in a spin. Not just from the alcohol either. He was never going to get any sleep while his thoughts and feelings were in such a mess. He sighed and rubbed his forehead. The strange electrical buzzing noise from downstairs hadn't helped matters either. At first, not knowing where it was coming from made him feel nervous. Then he pondered randomly that Kim might have been using some kind of intimate device in the absence of her partner and, frankly, that disturbed him even more. Even putting a pillow over his head didn't drown it out completely so eventually he sat up in bed, thinking over everything he'd been through in the last few days until the buzzing finally stopped.

Eventually Alex returned to the bedroom with a strange smile on her face.

"You're still awake?" she asked quietly.

Robin nodded and sighed.

"Kim put thoughts in my head and they're stressing me out," he said quietly.

Alex climbed a little gingerly into bed and smiled.

"Don't do too much thinking, Robin," she said, smoothing down his hair like a mother sending her child off at the school gates, "that's a sure-fire way to get wrinkles, you know."

Robin smiled distantly. He tried to snuggle back down under the covers but he looked anxiously on as Alex seemed to flinch a little and move awkwardly around the waist.

"Are you OK?" he asked, "are you hurt?"

Alex shook her head.

"Oh, no Robin," she said, "I'm fine."

"You don't look fine."

Alex smiled distantly.

"I'll explain in the morning," she said.

Robin still felt nervous but decided to let it go. He had other things on his mind.

"Alex?"

Alex flopped back against the pillows.

"Hmm?"

Robin hesitated.

"Do you think I'm," he paused. He wasn't sure what to say but it was playing on his mind. He spent so long trying to work out how to phrase it that Alex had to prompt him.

"What? What is it?"

Robin bit his lip a little anxiously.

"You don't think I've," he hesitated, "I've _latched onto_ you, do you?"

"What? No," frowned Alex, "what do you mean?"

"Because of the situation," said Robin, "do you think I'm developing some sort of unhealthy bond?"

"Where's this coming from?" Alex frowned, "no, I don't."

"And I'm not getting myself into an emotional tangle I can't get out of?"

Alex's head hurt.

"What are you talking about?"

Robin opened his mouth to reply, then closed it again and shook his head.

"Nothing," he said, "Just Kim trying out amateur psychology, I think."

Alex looked at him a little strangely. It seemed like a very odd thing to say, but it was obviously bothering Robin enough to question.

"Robin," she began quietly, "you've given me food, shelter, support and hope. I arrived out of the blue and needed help desperately which you gave to me, no question. I'm always going to be grateful to you for that."

With a smile of gratitude, she leaned forward and gently kissed his forehead, then lay back down and slowly turned onto her side, leaving Robin to blush modestly behind her back. He gave a soft smile and closed his eyes as he pulled the duvet up around his shoulders.

"Night, Alex," he whispered.

"Goodnight," Alex said with a sleepy sigh. There was a moment of quiet before she added, "Oh, and Robin?"

"Hmm?"

"Emotional tangles are fine as long as you don't have a crisis of sexuality and try jumping me in the middle of the night," she mumbled.

Robin smiled tiredly.

"Alex, it's been four months, I'm likely to jump _anything _at this point."

With a tired laugh, Alex found the sleep she'd been seeking and drifted away knowing that, when the early hours arrived, they would bring with them the dark and devastating mission that terrified her to contemplate. Without friends on her side it was a prospect she could never have faced but the strength she garnered from their support would see her through. She could face seeing where Keats had spent his life. She could face poring through clues and hints they'd find therein. She was even prepared for the wall of Simon and Robin photographs that she'd been warned of. She wasn't sure she could handle a Ridgeley picture, but she'd just have to face up to that if or when it happened.

Her sleep was light but dreamless that night and as the night flowed into the early morning she felt safe and warm wrapped up in the duvet. She couldn't guarantee the other Alex back in 1995 would be feeling as safe and warm. What the hell was the other _her_ even doing? Soon she would find out because, she told herself determinedly throughout the night, this would be the day that she'd find her way home.


	47. Chapter 23, 1995: Pesante

_**A/N: Thank you so, so much for the reviews and messages. I have really appreciated it. My fear was that 'Cucumber' spoke for everyone and that I had done something so fundamentally wrong (although I didn't know what) that the people who had been reading and enjoying this story until now were feeling the same way. I am very glad that this wasn't the case, your words really are appreciated.**_

_**Thank you for staying on this journey. It's not over yet – but I hope you will stay with Alex… and Alex… as they try to find their way home. x x**_

_**~xXx~**_

**Chapter Twenty Three: 1995**

Simon was full of pizza, Gene was full of latte and Kim was full of scotch. The car was full of condensation from their hot breath against the cold winter air outside. They felt as though they had been stuck in the car for an eternity when finally Simon sat bolt upright, his attention caught by headlights coming in their direction.

"There they are," he said quickly, Keats's car leaving the grounds of the station. He caught a glimpse of Alex in the passenger side looking pale, despondent and troubled. "Alex doesn't look good."

"How would you look after an afternoon at the beck and call of the horned one?" Gene mumbled, starting the car.

They drove in silence, following Keats from a safe distance through roads and lanes until Gene started to realise things were looking pretty familiar.

"I've been this way before," he mumbled.

Neither Simon nor Kim knew where they were going but Gene had been there once, with Alex, on the search for Keats after he had absconded from the handcuffs Gene had slapped on his wrists just a couple of weeks earlier.

"Where are we going?" Kim asked.

Gene tried to concentrate on the journey.

"Chez Keats," he said. Two pairs of eyes settle on him. "His _official residence._ Came with the job, apparently. Barely set foot in there though. Usually uses it to house drug dealing scumbags." He gave a deep sigh. "Or time-travelling DCIs, apparently."

They fell silent again until they reached the grounds of the property and fought childishly over who got to use the one pair of binoculars that they had to their name. Gene won through using a combination of wit and strength; or, clobbering the other two before they thought to clobber him first.

"What's he doing?" Kim muttered trying to see through the misty evening air.

Gene watched carefully through his binoculars as a pale and fragile looking Alex stepped out of the car, led to the door by Keats who raised Gene's anger by gently stroking her hair, then inexplicably turned to leave.

"He's not going in with her?" Simon frowned, "Oh shit, he's going back to the car!"

They stooped as low as they were able in their seats to avoid Keats's attention as he marched back to his car, climbed in and began to drive away. Three heads popped back up like a toy ride-along car full of plastic passengers and Gene started the engine.

"Leaving a woman alone in a big bloody place like that, what kind of thick idiot is he?" Gene mumbled.

"Where's he going?" Simon asked pointlessly.

"Well, shall I read his mind and find out?" Gene snapped, "or shall we stick to the plan and follow him?"

Not another word was said on the journey over to the other side of Fenchurch until Keats was close to his destination.

"Hang on a minute," Simon said quietly, "this looks familiar."

Gene glanced at him and kept quiet. He knew full well that the route was familiar to Simon. The land outside the building had seen him learn a truth that was still killing him inside. It was only another minute's drive to their location. As they pulled up, Keats was already unlocking the front door and stepping inside. Gene pulled up at a safe distance and glanced at Simon. He sighed internally at the crestfallen look on his face.

"I know," he said before Simon could utter a word.

"Shit," Simon whispered.

"What?" frowned Kim. She waited for someone to explain what was going on. "What's the matter?"

"This is where Susannah…" Simon began but trailed off before he could complete his sentence.

"It's where you stopped Keats from toasting her," Gene tried to make Simon see it in a different light.

Simon wasn't ready to look at it in any other way yet. He was having enough difficulty coping with the situation as it was. He looked around for Gene's bottle of scotch but couldn't see it anywhere. Eventually he located it on the back seat with Kim and sighed. It wasn't worth that much effort.

"What's the plan?" Kim asked.

Gene breathed deeply. He wasn't even sure himself.

"I don't want him getting Drake on her own," he said firmly. "We'll watch him all night, in case he goes back to his other house of residence," He rummaged for his flask as he saw a light go on in one of the flats. "_Ding dong, Avon calling."_

They could see a figure wandering around and a quick check through the binoculars confirmed it was the man of the moment.

"We're going to sit here all night?" asked Kim.

"If we have to," said Gene.

"But it's freezing!" cried Kim.

"My lovely warm jumper isn't looking so bad now, is it?" Simon taunted.

"Shoebury, if I ever hear the words 'lovely' and 'jumper' from you in the same sentence again you'll be finding a shredded pile of wool on the floor by morning," Gene warned.

As he and Kim argued over an observation and sleeping rota, Simon stared out of the window. He was getting the chills, and it had nothing to do with the cold weather – the jumper saw to that. It wasn't just Susannah's death that was haunting him, but as he stared at the building it, too, began to seem awfully familiar. He couldn't quite place it but he felt certain he'd been there before. Feeling nervous and confused he shuffled down a little in his seat, wrapped himself up in his jumper and surreptitiously took the flask from Gene for a swig of warming liquid. This wasn't a place he wanted to spend the night. There was something afoot, he could feel it through his bones.

~xXx~

Alex sat at the kitchen table with a glass of water and some paracetamol. Her head was banging and her mouth was dry. She felt for all the world as though she had a hangover but two glasses of red at lunch couldn't have caused this. She put her hand to her aching head. She still felt faint and dizzy, and her mind was clouded and strange.

Taking the tablets, she chased them down with the water which her dry mouth readily accepted. She gave a gentle gasp as she finished the drink and placed the glass back on the table. Her emotions were low; her spirits down as dark as they had ever been. She couldn't understand why she was feeling this way. The night before, she's have given her eye teeth to be in the situation she found herself in that afternoon. She'd thought of little else all night long. So why, now she'd had the wild fling that she'd prayed for her subconscious to create, did she feel so damn retched about it?

The encounter had been far from the glorious night of pleasure she'd anticipated. It had been heady, muggy, blurred and frustrating. She felt confused, used and sordid. The event had been a rushed distortion; she couldn't quite work out what happened or how it even started.

There were some moments when she still felt that the whole thing had been a dream, then the sore patches and scratches on her back suggested otherwise. Why was her head in such a strange place? She couldn't understand it. Ever since she'd met the dark and mysterious man he'd been playing on her mind; now he was playing _with_ her mind. She'd craved a moment of wild abandon from the moment they'd met, so why did she now hate herself so much for indulging her desire?

She thought about his eyes, his stare, his deep dark gaze and how it affected every inch of her body. He got inside her mind. He made her want it. He made her want _him._ How did he do that? Had he been doing it from the moment they met?

She got up slowly and walked around. Why had she felt so faint? Why was the basement so hot? The heat hadn't affected Keats in the same way, he'd barely noticed. In fact, she noted with some alarm in her head, he'd kept the entire top half of his attire on throughout – even his _trenchcoat!_ That fact was the one that seemed to shock her most of all.

'_Again'._ That word came back to her thoughts. She knew Keats had known whoever she was before but if they'd been anything more than friends or colleagues then why wouldn't he have said so? Come to think of it, why hadn't 'Gene' said something to that effect? He didn't seem like the type to keep his mouth shut.

She slapped her hand to her forehead and gave a deep, mournful sigh. Even_ she_ was doing it now. _'If they had been…', _suggesting that she'd been there before. Stupid head. Stupid dumb head, stupid dumb brain. She was buying into her delusions the same way Sam Tyler had bought into his. She had to get out of that mind-set. If she wasn't careful she'd end up flying off the roof.

The horrible pangs of hunger started up again, drawing her attention back to her lack of food and Keats's spiteful taunts. For someone so insistent that she needed to drop the pounds he hadn't seemed to have any trouble laying his hands all over her body just a few short hours before. She rubbed her stomach, desperate for food, and sought out some sustenance from the kitchen but the few items Keats had loaded the cupboards with earlier that day were bland, healthy and wouldn't satisfy a fly. She found an apple – it wasn't the stodgy food she found herself craving to balance herself a little but it was the best she could find. One bite felt like torture. It was food, but it wasn't sating her hunger.

"_Fuck it,"_ she muttered, storming across the room to the fairly alien phone book. Back home this was now usually used for propping up the wobbly coffee table and phone numbers were found at the click of a button. Flicking through the pages she found the one she was searching for, lifted the phone and tapped in the numbers quickly. She waited impatiently for her call to be answered.

"Hello?" she said eventually as someone responded to her call, "Yes, I'd like to order a pizza please. Large. Four Seasons."

She didn't much care to think about what Keats would say if he called by to pick her up in the morning and found a half-eaten pizza on the kitchen table, nor is he found her half-dead from pizza-overload with bits of melted cheese covering her forehead and crust sticking out of her mouth. If he thought her body was a wreck on the outside then it was on a far worse state on the inside from the lack of food and unexpected sauna of a room she was supposed to work in.

Her mind began to work overtime. Something changed with that afternoon's happenings and it was something that had started to lift the layers of smoke and mirrors from around the man who'd picked her up off the street. It suddenly mattered less if it was in her head or if this was reality and she'd been dreaming the future all her life. She felt as though she was waking from a trance, and the mists were beginning to clear.

She longed for a whiteboard. Oh, what she would have given for one of those beauties right then. She had thoughts gathering in her mind and no way of ordering them. She hoped the paracetamol would work on her headache and the pizza would arrive soon because she needed a clear head and a full stomach to work through this.

She didn't know if she'd been blind, stupid or hypnotised but the cracks in the dream were starting to appear and they were only going to grow from there.

~xXx~

Life in the Fiat was far from rosy. It was nearing midnight and Gene had devised an observation rota so that each of them could catch a couple of hours sleep while one pair of eyes at all times remained on Keats's flat and another stayed on his car, just in case he decided to sneak anywhere. This seemed like a good plan until Gene declared that he was first on the rota, climbed in the back and promptly started snoring.

His large form was sprawled across the back seat, his feet up against the window and his knees bent at an angle that just couldn't be comfortable. He seemed to have developed the ability to fall asleep at the drop of a hat and for almost two hours Kim and Simon had been listening to his ragged breathing and snoring, accompanied by the occasional murmurings of whatever dream he was having at the time. He'd already selected fifteen karaoke tracks during his spell of sleep, and attempted to belt a few of them out, too. He'd just chosen number twenty nine, _Common People,_ when Simon looked behind him, frowned and shook his head.

"At least he didn't pick number thirty," he said.

"What's that?"

"Charmless Man," said Simon, raising a smile from Kim. She watched the window through the binoculars for a while, and glanced at Simon as he lifted the bottle of scotch and took a swig.

"Why are you drinking?" she asked.

"This from little miss sober," commented Simon, "how many pints was it you rolled in after in the early hours of the morning?"

Kim ignored that. She carried on watching through the window until she suddenly said,

"Hey, Keats is watching Topless Darts on L!ve TV!" She frowned a little. "Shit. Changed the channel." She watched Simon drinking again. "Come on, what's the matter?"

"Sod all," Simon sighed.

"You're drinking, _and_ you've got the jumper on," said Kim.

"_It is cold!"_

Kim rubbed her head.

"Is it about Robin?" she asked, "missing him again?"

"Partly," said Simon. He exhaled loudly. Kim wasn't the type to drop a subject. He pointed out the window. "There - right there – that's where Susannah died. That's when I found out, that I was like _them."_

Kim bit her lip a little nervously. This subject matter was a little darker than she'd been expecting.

"Sorry," she said quietly, "no wonder you've been quiet, sitting here and staring at it."

Simon closed his eyes for a moment. He realised that was probably not the best thing to do on a stake-out but how fast was Keats going to get from the TV to his car anyway?

"I keep thinking, I wouldn't be finding it so hard if I wasn't on my own," he said, "If Robin was here, I'd be coping much better. And then my mind goes off on this tangent that makes me feel really, really guilty but I keep wishing that he'd died in the crash too." He looked at Kim. "How horrible am I?"

Kim shook her head slowly.

"That's not horrible," she said quietly.

"I don't understand why we had to be split up," Simon continued, "I fought my way back from here once. If I was going to end up back here within the year anyway, what was the point?"

Kim sighed and thought for a moment.

"Well," she began, "maybe you _had_ to go back. Think about what you did in the time between your first trip here and coming back again."

Simon looked a little sheepish.

"Look, my trousers really _did_ fall down and nothing was ever proven…" he began.

Kim frowned.

"Erm," she began cautiously.

"If I'd known my belt was broken I would never have stood up to make the speech in the first place," Simon continued.

Kim shook her head violently.

"OK, first of all, no thanks at all for _that_ image. Secondly, I am happy to say I have no idea what you're talking about. And thirdly, I meant, Keats. You saved Alex and killed him."

Simon began to draw in a deep breath as he thought about her words. That was something he'd never thought about before. It made a lot of sense.

"Maybe," he said quietly. He bit his lip. "OK, but then, if I had to go back because I was somehow…" he shook his head, _"destined_ to do that," he considered using air quotes but didn't want to turn into Alex, "then why is Robin back out there where he's got no one while I'm stuck here? I'm not being rotten, Kim, but he's got no family of his own, he's not that close to anyone he works with, doesn't have many friends. It would be better for _him_ if he was on this side as well."

Kim shook her head slowly and sighed.

"Then maybe Robin's got his own destiny to fill first," she said quietly, "maybe he's got his own Keats to kill."

Simon shuddered. He didn't like the idea of that.

"He's on his own out there, I'm on my own right here."

"You're not on your own," Kim pointed out.

"I am," said Simon, "Look what happens here. You get to know someone and then they bugger off to the pub, permanently."

"Sounds like my idea of heaven…" said Kim. She held her hands up in surrender as Simon glared at her. "Joke! _Joke!_ It was a joke!"

Simon pulled a face, then went thoughtfully back to his musings.

"Seriously, Kim, I have a laugh with you and then I remember you'll be going home one day. I barely got to know Malcolm and Susannah, then I had to say goodbye."

"Doesn't sound like Gene's going to hang up his boots for a long time," said Kim.

"Yeah, but as soon as we get Alex back it's going to be those two against the world again. I don't think Gene really _does_ 'friends'."

"So befriend the woman with the fat arse in the canteen," said Kim. She could see Simon wasn't impressed. His attention turned back to the bottle and Kim decided to change the subject. She dropped her voice a little. "Simon, did you notice what Alex said earlier – a certain name cropped up again."

Simon nodded slowly.

"Sam Tyler, _again,"_ he said.

"Did you ask him about it earlier?" asked Kim.

Simon shook his head.

"Not yet," he said, "But I will do."

"But you asked him about the squirrel thing?" asked Kim, "Right?"

"What do you take me for? Of _course_ I asked him about the squirrel thing!"

"So what did he say?"

"Made a few threats against certain delicate parts of my anatomy," Simon mumbled, "maybe you should ask. You don't have them so he can't make the same joke."

"The thought of him with a big bushy tail is going to keep me in nightmares for weeks," Kim hissed with a giggle.

Finally Simon found something lifting his spirits.

"Yeah, I'm not _nuts_ about the image either," he laughed.

"Fire up the bird feeder!" Kim snickered.

Simon froze. He turned to her.

"How long ago did Gene stop snoring?" he asked.

"Long enough ago to know that you're both asking for a bunch of fives if you ever mention the squirrel costume again," a gruff and angry voice came from the back seat.

A panicked glance passed between Simon and Kim.

"_Shit,"_ they whispered in unison.

Gene emerged looking cross and crumpled. He made a gesture with his thumb.

"Get in the back, Shoebury," he said, "and take yer bleeding Noel Edmonds jumper with you."

Looking a little guilty, Simon climbed out of the car and scurried around to the back while Gene swapped into the front beside Kim who was uncharacteristically quiet for two entire hours. So greatly did she fear the wrath of a scorned Gene that she behaved like a good little detective, staring through her binoculars, watching for Keats and keeping her blood alcohol level topped up to a Gene-Approved amount.

Finally, after two entire hours had passed, her mouth opened and her brain allowed her to blurt the question she couldn't fight.

"So, about the squirrel thing."

"Just because you don't have any nuts doesn't mean I can't find an equivalent punishment for you," Gene told her.

Kim pulled a face but accepted his response.

"Fair enough," she said.

Gene sighed and looked at Kim. It was strange to reflect that for someone who'd been at CID for a fairly long time he hardly knew her.

"It's been an experience," he began. He saw her looking at him curiously, "butting in on Simon's Empire of Nerddom." He paused. "How do you two get on so well ?"

Kim smiled distantly.

"Oh, I don't know," she sighed, "we're not so different really. Maybe on the surface, but," she sighed, "we're both misfits. Different ways, but both outsiders. He likes his spaceships a bit more than me… I've got more metal in my face than he's got in his tool kit… But we're both sort of –"

"Oddballs?" asked Gene.

"I prefer non-conformists," said Kim.

Gene decided that was the perfect time for scotch.

"I got a station _full_ o' non-conformists," he mumbled. That was a common thread, he thought. They'd all been misfits in a way, not just because of their situation either. The most 'normal' person he'd had on his team had probably been Susannah and how normal could someone be if they willingly went around tripping people up to practice first aid on them?

"Alright," he sighed, "I've got one for you."

Kim looked at him dubiously.

"One what?" She wasn't sure she wanted it, whatever it was.

Gene rubbed his temples. He was sure he'd said the exact same thing to Simon a few hours before.

"A question," he began, "why have I ended up with-" _Think, Gene, think. Need to find acceptable derogatory terms that are not going to win me a black eye with Kim sitting six inches way. _"…A department full of the Rainbow Brigade."

He vaguely braced himself for retaliation but obviously Kim's blood alcohol level had risen above that now.

"I don't know," Kim shrugged, "coincidence?"

"How come I've been in this job more years than you've got piercings and never 'ad one on me team before?" Gene asked.

Kim glanced at him.

"You probably did," she said, "but they, _you know," _she shrugged, "had to hide it."

Gene hesitated. That made some sense.

"You never saw _the tape_ did you?"

Kim had never seen it, but she'd heard about it.

"You can't put someone's past in the context of the present," she said.

Gene frowned. Kim had been hanging around with Simon too long, he thought, she was starting to sound like him now.

"So," he began, "Is this my punishment?"

Kim glanced at him.

"Does it _feel_ like a punishment?"

Gene thought for a moment and helped himself to more scotch, then shook his head.

"Shoebury's sci fi collection, on the other hand…" he considered.

Kim laughed a little, then looked decidedly uncomfortable. She stared ahead and said,

"Sometimes we get caught up in stuff we should know better about because it's the 'done thing'. You're not on your own, you know. Sometimes you just don't know enough or you spend your life trying to cover up." A guilty memory came forth. "I remember there were these two girls at school. Just because they would hang around together all the time everyone called them dykes. Lesbians. And I joined in, because it was that, or get found out. How horrible is that? I bullied others rather than get found out myself."

Gene glanced at her.

"I hope you're not trying to out me here, Stringer," he warned.

"My point is," Kim sighed, "we all do things we regret because of peer pressure. You were brought up a different way." She tried to wrestle the bottle off Gene but he wasn't surrendering it yet. "Maybe it's not a punishment. Maybe it's a learning curve."

Gene nodded and finally gave up the scotch. That made more sense.

"Alright," he said, "you get ten points for yer logic there."

"Now, if you had a sudden squirrel recruitment drive on the other hand," Kim began, fully aware she was risking some kind of violent reaction.

"Promotions can be revoked," Gene said firmly.

Kim looked a little sheepish.

"Sorry, Guv," she said.

A silence fell as time moved on. The early hours of the morning brought with them two fighting cats, a short rain shower and a singing milkman but little else. Keats's light stayed on all night, prompting Kim to ask at one point whether he even slept, which earned her a not unexpected but definitely unwanted '_you should know' _from Gene.

Just before five, there was a bloodcurdling scream from the back seat and Simon sat bolt upright yelling;

"_Aaaarrrgghhhhhhh – Squirrels!" _He froze, looked around, struggled to get his bearings and frowned. "Sorry," he mumbled, "bad dream."

"Funny," Gene scowled, "That describes my life with you in CID!"

Kim looked at her watch.

"Does this mean I finally get some sleep?" she asked hopefully.

Simon rubbed his eyes

"Well after that nightmare_ I_ certainly don't want to go back to sleep," he mumbled. He pushed open the door, climbed out and swapped places with Kim. He plopped down in the front passenger seat and barely had time to pick up the binoculars before he heard Kim snoring. He laughed gently.

"That didn't take long," he said.

Gene eyed Simon suspiciously.

"One mention of bushy tails in the next three hours and you're demoted to tea and biscuit duty," he said.

Simon didn't respond. He'd more or less resigned himself to never finding out about the squirrel thing, at least not unless he managed to catch Gene at his most intoxicated one day. Besides, there were other matters he was more interested in finding out about, although the possibility of prising any more information from Gene about them was about on par with the squirrels.

"_Gene,"_ he began nervously, receiving a sigh and an eye roll.

"No good can ever come of a sentence that starts like that," he said.

Simon hesitated.

"Then you're probably not going to like what's coming up," he said.

Gene groaned.

"Go on."

"Alex earlier," he said, "I couldn't help noticing she was focusing on the Sam Tyler thing again."

"I told you before, I don't want to go there," Gene told him. To illustrate the point he took a long swig from the bottle. Unfortunately for him, Simon wasn't finished.

"You said yesterday the last time someone started talking about Sam you ended up with a ceiling full of stars." He paused. "_I've_ seen stars."

Gene stared ahead.

"It wasn't yesterday, it was the day before," he said a little childishly.

Simon breathed in deeply and exhaled at volume. Talking to Gene was like trying to convince a brick wall to go for a walk sometimes. He tried to find another angle. There had to be something that would get Gene to open up. Sometimes he just wasn't sure how to talk to him. Their last attempt at small talk had proven that point. They didn't seem to have a lot in common and he tried desperately to think of a starting point that he could draw on. Frustratingly he ended up succeeding only in getting the lyrics to _Breakfast at Tiffany's_ stuck in his head, and since it wasn't even going to be released for another eight or nine months he didn't think Gene would appreciate a chorus of that. Never the less, the lyrics ran through his head over and over.

_# You'll say that we've got nothing in common_

_No common ground to start from_

_And we're falling apart_

_You'll say the world has come between us_

_Our lives have come between us_

_Still I know you just don't care _

_And I said, "What about 'Breakfast at Tiffany's'?"_

_She said, "I think I remember the film,yes_

_and as I recall, I think, we both kinda liked it."_

_And I said, "Well, that's the one thing we've got." #_

That's when it suddenly came to him. He didn't know why he'd never thought of it before. Maybe because it was a part of his own family history he didn't know all that well.

"Manchester," he said.

Gene looked at him like he'd gone off his rocker.

"Not word association, Shoebury," he sighed, "Too early in the morning for that."

"No," Simon sighed, "you told me yesterday Sam was your DI in Manchester." Gene didn't respond. "When did you move down here?"

"About sixteen years ago now," Gene said, "more or less."

Simon nodded slowly.

"My mum's originally from Manchester," he said.

Gene looked at him in surprise.

"You never mentioned that before," he said.

"I didn't know my mum's side of the family at all," Simon explained, "Never been up there myself."

Despite Simon's revelation being an attempt to get Gene to share some of his past it was Gene whose interest had been piqued.

"You don't talk about yer mother," he said.

Simon looked down a little distantly.

"She died when I was young," he said quietly, "Car accident." He felt an emerging sadness he hadn't experienced in a long time. "Like mother, like son, hmm?"

"How old were you?"

"Five," Simon sighed, "my dad brought up me and my sisters on his own."

"You've got sisters?"

"Two," said Simon, "I'm the youngest. I think I'm the black sheep of the family. The weird one. My sisters did the normal teenage rebellion thing while I sat making scale models of Starbug out of paper mache."

That revelation didn't surprise Gene in the slightest.

"How much family have you got up in me old home town then?" he asked.

"I don't know really," Simon sighed, "there was a falling out before I was born. Something to do with some drunken hen night fiasco when my mum went up for her sister's wedding and they never spoke again."

Gene nodded.

"Families," he said, "don't you just love them?"

Simon bit his lip. It was time to attack the subject at hand.

"What were things like?" he asked, "In Manchester?"

"Rainy," said Gene.

Simon frowned.

"I meant with work."

"I know."

Simon sighed in frustration. The more he asked, the less he got.

"Were you doing the same thing up there that you do down here?"

"Sitting in a car watching some bloody idiot watching QVC at half five in the morning?" asked Gene, "No." He saw the frustrated look on Simon's face. He knew he was being horribly evasive but it was hard to look back sometimes. Eventually he relented, just a little. "I didn't always remember when I was in Manchester," he said. Now Simon's eyes were on him. "I blocked the whole thing out for most of it. When people arrived, something in me head told me what was going on, but I didn't think about it. Sam made it harder to fight. Wouldn't keep his trap shut. It was all about going home and getting back to two thousand and bollocks. And this place… this _world,"_ he didn't like using that term but couldn't think of a better one, "It was smaller then. I was an island."

Simon looked at the scotch level in the bottle.

"That was a bit profound," he commented, "how much have you had?"

Gene ignored him.

"Things seemed different in Manchester. I can't explain why… like we were more _real_ then. Like we weren't so far removed. Sometimes it was like we had more impact on things that 'appened _over there_. More influence."

"This world was more tangible back then?" Simon asked.

Gene had consumed enough scotch to mishear and began to tell Simon that tangerines had no place in this story, but realised his mistake at the last moment and stopped abruptly.

"I suppose so," he said, "Even I've never been completely sure if we could change the past."

"You've always said that's a no-go," Simon frowned.

"It is _now_, I'm sure of that," said Gene, "but sometimes back in the north…" he sighed. "A couple of things Tyler said. Things he did. He claims they changed things back where he came from." He shuffled, clearly uncomfortable with the topic but Simon had to give him credit for continuing. "This man. Tony Crane." His face was grim, "Sam claimed he was in his hospital room, trying to kill him. Things that 'appened here… well, sounds like they changed the course of things. Probably saved his life." He stared out the window. "Course, I was in denial. Load of lard for a brain back then. Blocked the whole thing out. Wasn't for years I realised, not really." He took a swig from the bottle and finally rescrewed the lid, deciding this was probably a good juncture to sober up some. "Maybe _this place_ gets more distant from the other one, the more time goes on."

Gene's words had been hard for Simon to fully take in.

"Sam changed things?" he asked, to make sure he'd understood.

"Seemed like it. Every now and then, it was like something we did filtered through. Lines were blurred. Both worlds are very separate now," he looked down, "as I'm sure Alex will vouch for,."

"How long was Sam here for?" he asked.

"_Too_ long, drove me bloody mad," Gene mumbled. "I'll tell you one thing. He was the first one who ever came back."

"What do you mean?"

"Faded. Woke up. Came back."

"What, like me?" Simon couldn't wrap his head around it.

"No, not like you," Gene shook his head, "came back almost where he left. He was gone for a second. Didn't like what he found when he went home, and he made a choice."

"That's a pretty powerful choice to make," Simon said quietly. He paused. "OK, so if Sam came back to a second after he left, and when Alex faded out she came back a moment later why did I skip ten years and come back in the nineties?"

"Came here on Robin's coattails", Gene guessed, "or, this is where you were needed. Rules are changing," he sighed, "you said so yourself."

Simon nodded slowly. Things were starting to seem a little clearer now

"So, what happened?" he asked, "why didn't Sam come with you when you transferred?"

"His time was up," Gene said simply.

"If you didn't remember then how did you know?"

Gene couldn't explain it. It was impossible to put into words. The _knowing but not knowing_. Different layers of conscious thought._ Funny how the mind works, _he thought. The little tricks it uses to help you cope. To help you survive.

"He saw stars," Gene said quietly, "had flashbacks. Things telling him it was time to move on. He was acting strangely for a while. Turned down promotion, things got a bit hairy between him and his missus. He asked for my help."

Simon felt a sense of alarm.

"But _I've _seen stars," he whispered, "and I've only just arrived."

"I don't think those stars are meant for you, son," Gene said quietly.

Simon stared at him, ever more bewildered.

"Then why…?"

Gene began to regret screwing the lid back on.

"You take away a wall and the roof starts to cave in," he said. He looked at him. "Or in this case, Alex."

Simon swallowed. He started to understand now.

"Things are falling apart without her," he nodded slowly.

"It's not 'my world' any more," Gene grunted, "she's been here a long time, Simon. And for ten years, she's been my equal. Now Keats has got 'er…" he shook his head slowly. "Doesn't bear thinking about."

Simon fell silent. He didn't really know what to say. He still had a lot of questions to ask Gene, about Sam and about his world, but at least Gene had finally started to open up. It was a step in the right direction.

He went back to watching for Keats, the only sound being an occasional sniff from Gene as the cold weather got into his nose or a mumble from sleeping Kim on the back seat. It felt as though an eternity passed before Gene piped up.

"Shoebury?"

Simon glanced at him.

"Hmm?"

"Just because you've got some Mancunian blood in you doesn't mean I'm going to take a more lenient stance on that jumper," Gene told him crossly, "Soon as this stake-out's over I'm walking it to the incinerator meself."

Simon pouted.

"You are _so _getting one of these for Christmas," he mumbled.


	48. Chapter 24, 2011: Eroico

_**A/N: Double Dose! 2 chapters today and 2 chapters tomorrow as the two worlds come closer to converging than ever.**_

_**And on a different note, for some light relief after the last few days, I discovered today the polls feature on FFnet and have posted a *cough* VERY SERIOUS and NOT AT ALL STUPID poll on my profile – go and vote! **_**:D**

**~xXx~**

**Chapter Twenty Four: 2011**

Alex felt someone nuzzling up against her neck and flapped her hand dismissively.

"Stop it, Gene, it's not time to get up yet," she mumbled into her pillow.

The nuzzling stopped.

"_Huh?"_

Alex rolled over and found herself face to face with a shocked Robin.

"You're not Gene!" she cried, falling out of bed.

"You're not Simon!" Robin retaliated, scrambling upright and pushing back his fringe. He glanced guiltily at the heap of Alex on the ground. "Uh, sorry," he cringed, "you OK?"

Alex frowned, rubbed her backside and climbed to her feet.

"It's just my bottom and my pride that have taken a battering," she mumbled. She rubbed her eyes. "What time is it anyway?"

Robin turned and looked blearily at the clock.

"Fuck," he sighed, "it's four. _Keats time."_

Thundering footsteps stormed up the stairs and they soon found Kim arriving urgently at the door.

"What the hell was _that?"_ she cried.

Alex peered out from the hair still covering half of her face from her unceremonious tumble.

"Slight accident," she mumbled.

"I think she's fallen for me," Robin risked a terrible pun.

Kim closed her eyes and sighed.

"Well it's time for breakfast anyway," She said.

"No it's not, it's time to still be asleep," Robin said crossly, annoyed no one had laughed at his joke, but nevertheless he climbed out the bed and joined the others in trailing down to the kitchen. They looked like a bit of a strange bunch, Robin had to be honest; him in Simon's old shirt, Alex wearing pyjamas that were too short for her and Kim – well, Kim was _Kim_; ink and metal.

"What's for breakfast?" Alex wondered.

"Toast," said Kim.

Alex couldn't help thinking she got a better deal the previous morning with Robin's fry-up. She took a deep breath and began;

"So – how are we going to do this?"

"The building should be fairly easy to access," said Robin, "There's a fire escape that runs up the back."

"What about the flat?" asked Kim.

"There's an MDF panel over the door," said Robin, "the flat was constantly being broken into by people who wanted to see the den of evil." He lifted a cup of tea that Kim had set on the table for him. "Eventually they re-installed the Ridgeley autograph and that seemed to keep intruders away. We should be able to get the panel off OK."

Alex noticed Kim looking anxious as she placed a plate of toast in front of her.

"Kim? Are you alright?" she asked.

Kim nodded but she didn't seem assured.

"What exactly are we looking for?" Robin asked, "I'm not sure I understand."

Alex wasn't sure she even knew herself.

"Anything," she whispered, "_everything_. Anything that tells me more about who he was when he was here. Anything that might help me get home. If he has the files of anyone who has been in a coma, maybe been to that world, then maybe they can help. Maybe they can tell me how to get back." She let out a deep sigh. "And," she said quietly, "I have a few ghosts I need to exorcise."

She noticed that Kim withdrew her toast from her mouth mid-bite and returned it to the plate as she spoke. She wondered how many lives Keats had ruined through his life – _and_ his death.

"One condition," Robin began. His voice was darker and more authoritative than either had ever heard it before and Alex wondered if this was how he trained his police dogs. "Any one of us changes our mind at any point… any of us find we can't handle it… we walk away with no shame, no come-backs, no consequences. OK?"

Kim and Alex both nodded.

"OK," Kim said quietly.

Breakfast concluded in silence and the three of them dressed quickly for the quest that lay ahead; Alex threw on whatever Kim found that fit her and Robin had no choice but to wear his clothes from the day before. A worrying knowledge that he should find some alternatives to help his escape detection by the general public led him to experience the grim thought that he might find something in the derelict home of Keats. The thought of it made him feel thoroughly sick but if it was a choice between wearing some of Keats's cast-offs or being lugged to the funny farm and leaving Alex to fend for herself then the Jimbo look won every time.

Just as they were heading out of the door, Kim had a sudden thought and said to Alex;

"Don't forget about your…" she tapped the side of her stomach to remind her. "You know."

A lightbulb went on over Alex's head. She'd almost forgotten about the care regime that Kim instructed her to follow.

"Oh, thanks Kim," she whispered.

"Get a clean flannel and towel out the airing cupboard," Kim called after her as she ran quickly up the stairs.

Robin glanced at Kim, a little confused.

"Is… is she OK?" he asked.

Kim gave him a little smile.

"She's fine," she whispered, "just has something to take care of, that's all."

X

Standing before the bathroom mirror Alex carefully peeled away the tape that held her dressing into place and looked at the ink that sat beautifully beneath her skin. For so long she'd thought of her bullet mark as her equivalent of a tattoo, sealing her connection to Gene and to his world. Now that she found herself disconnected from that plain, she'd found a way to keep that connection.

She turned on the hot tap and began to fill the sink. The steam that rose from the water reminded her that the cold weather was still biting hard. She turned the tap back off and began to dampen the clean flannel she'd collected in the fresh, clear water when a gentle knock sounded at the door and Robin's voice called,

"Alex? Are you OK?"

"Come in, Robin," she called back, "I'm fine."

She pressed the hot washcloth against her skin, drawing a sharp intake of air as the heat and the motion made her sore skin hurt a little but within a few seconds she became used to the sensation and gently started to clean the area.

"I was worried about you," Robin told her a little nervously, "what was so important?"

Alex felt a little embarrassed suddenly. She wasn't sure why. Maybe because she was a grown woman who'd never considered a tattoo in her life before. It felt like such an impulsive gesture. She turned around and pulled her clothes away from the area for Robin to see.

"I had a scar," she whispered.

"You've tattooed over a scar?" Robin frowned.

"No, in nineteen ninety five," said Alex, "It was my connection to home, and this body didn't have it. I had to do something about it."

Robin gave her a smile. It was a little awkward and full of emotion.

"That's lovely, Alex," he said quietly, "brilliant gesture." He paused. "And," his voice became a little strained, "at least now I know what that buzzing noise was all about."

Alex carefully patted over her tattoo with a towel which she hung over the side of the bath, then pulled down her top and set her face into a strong and determined expression.

"Time to face the music," she said quietly and led Robin out of the room.

X

The drive to the Falcon Building passed in a strange and eerie silence that the three of them had not expected. It felt as though the idea of going there had shocked the words from their minds and rendered them unable to talk. It seemed at one point as though no one would ever be able to speak again. But eventually, as the building loomed into view, the words began to filter back.

"I never wanted to come here again," Robin said quietly.

"Oh my _god,"_ Alex whispered, "I remember what happened out here. Susannah…. She died, _right _here."

Kim stared up at the building as she drove into an empty visitor's spot and drew in her breath. She felt horrifically sick all of a sudden, as though she'd been knocking back a bottle of the good stuff before making the journey. She felt a strange, dark sensation, almost as though someone was walking over her grave. Worse than that, she felt as though she was walking over her own grave.

Her hands froze on the wheel and she swallowed.

"I can't do it," she whispered.

"Pardon, Kim?" Alex wasn't sure she'd heard right.

Kim turned to her with her eyes wide and scared.

"I can't do it," she whispered, "I can't go in there. I'm sorry – I'm _so_ sorry, I just…" she realised she was shaking from head to toe. "I didn't know I was going to feel like this. I thought I was _past_ all this, bit now…"

"Shhh," Alex reached out and wrapped her arms around Kim's head and shoulders, trying to show her through that motion that she understood. She closed her eyes and squeezed her gently. "I know. I _know,_ Kim. You don't have to do this. Remember what Robin said."

"But I feel like such a bloody idiot," Kim whispered.

"Kim, this is hard," Robin said urgently, "this is _really_ hard. We understand. I didn't want to go in there either, but," he swallowed as he peered at the building looming above them. "But now I'm _here_… now I'm here, I know I _can."_

"But I really felt I could do it," Kim drew away from Alex, feeling a little ashamed.

"Stay here," Alex told her gently, "stay in the car. You never know, we might need a getaway driver."

"Oh great," Kim sighed, "I've gone from harbouring wanted criminals to being a coward and now being a getaway driver within the space of a few hours."

Alex looked at her seriously and shook her head.

"You're not a coward, Kim," she said, "you know your limits. And that takes courage."

Robin bit his lip.

"We'd better go, Alex," he said, "Time's getting on. We need to get in and out before it's light."

Alex looked at Kim."

"Are you going to be OK out here?"

Kim nodded and roughly wiped away a tear that she hadn't been expecting to fall.

"I'll be fine," she whispered.

Alex nodded.

"We'll be back soon," She said quietly.

Steeling their resolve with a few deep breaths, Alex and Robin opened their doors and stepped into the frozen morning air. They linked arms for security and strength then began to stride toward the building. They knew that whatever they found inside wouldn't be pretty, but they hoped it would lead to Alex's exit from 2011 and her safe return to Gene and to the life she missed. How she would get there, they had no idea. The route was unclear, but both felt a strange electricity in the air. Something was happening. Something was stirring. Answers were closer now. They could only hope they would be worth the horror that lay ahead behind those doors.

"There could be Ridgeley pictures in there," Alex whispered.

Robin swallowed.

"That's a given," he whispered.

They began to climb the rickety fire escape together, looking for a door with a weakness that would allow them in and on the second floor they found it. A fire exit left open by some sneaky teen heading out for a night on the tiles under his parents' nose. Cheeky bugger. But at least his escape route gave them easy access to the building, and locating Keats's flat was an easy task. The graffiti on the walls led the way.

_This way to the Devil's Den,_ one said.

_Kinky Keats Woz Ere,_ said another.

_Cop Killer!_ A third screamed.

There was also a small limerick that started with the line; _There was a young fellow from Wham,_ but Robin couldn't bring himself to read the rest of that one.

Finally they arrived at the doorway; the board covering its entrance easy for even someone of Robin's skinny stature to force his way through and as it moved and crumbled before them there was nothing holding back the full horror of Keats's time back in the land if the living. This was it. No turning back. Alex wasn't sure she was ready for all that lay ahead but she had to face it.

"Keats," she hissed, "Whoever you were here, I'm coming to find you."


	49. Chapter 24, 1995: Bravura

_**A/N: The second of two chapters today – tomorrow will also see a double dose!**_

**Chapter Twenty Four: 1995**

Simon's backside had started to go decidedly numb. Pins and needles were starting to travel through his left buttock and thigh. It was only a matter of time before they would migrate to the other side too.

"Shoebury, if you need to have a piss get out the bloody car and pick yer tree of choice," Gene said crossly.

"I don't need to take a leak, my arse has gone numb!" Simon protested.

"So you get indignant when I accuse you of needing a piss but you're happy to tell me about the non-feeling state of your backside?" asked Gene.

Simon stopped fidgeting and folded his arms. He stared up at the window.

"What are we doing here, Gene?" he sighed.

Gene hesitated.

"Arguing," he said.

Simon closed his eyes and gave a frustrated sigh.

"I _mean," _he began, "we're sitting down here at some ridiculous hour, it's obvious Keats isn't going to do anything now. We'll wait until he goes to pick Alex up and follow him to Fenchurch West – and then what? Another day in the car, parked opposite the gates? More pizzas and scotch?"

"I just needed to make sure she was safe overnight," said Gene, "didn't want anything happening to her."

"Then shouldn't we have been watching her instead of Keats?"

"I was hoping he might do something more revealing than watching _Nightscreen_ and _pages from Ceefax_," Gene mumbled. He began to see the logic in Simon's argument. The night before, all he had been worried about was keeping an eye on Keats and making sure he did not go on an Alex-seeking mission. That wasn't going to stop him from doing whatever he planned to the following day though. Once she was escorted back into Fenchurch West there was no telling what could happen.

He'd spent half the night trying to work out how they could prove to Alex that Keats was a man not to be trusted. He went over and over Simon's suggestions in his mind. If he had any tapes of Keats – the way Keats seemed to have an endless video collection of everyone else – then the plan might have been easier to follow through with but all they had was his attempt at stealing Susannah's life.

As though reading his thoughts, Simon began to talk about his other idea. It wasn't the option Gene wanted to think about, but it was the one Simon's head couldn't leave alone.

"Gene, I've been thinking –"

"Uh oh, that was yer first mistake," Gene sighed.

"- about trying to get Keats to bring out the human side again," Simon continued.

"Simon," Gene shook his head, "Listen to me. To bring out the human side you seem to either need a tape of him snuffing it, or a naked Kim."

"Hmmmpf… _What?"_ a half asleep Kim awoke at those words and looked up in horror.

"And what happens when he _does_ become a man? He goes all blubbery or starts fiddling with yer nipples."

"_Gene!"_ Simon's face turned red from the neck upwards, "we almost made it all night without that subject coming up. He no more…._fiddled with my nipples_ than he danced the Bolero! Have you got that?"

Gene ignored him.

"Even when he's a man, he's a jabbering wreck," he continued, "He can't cope with those _feeling things_ you seem to want him to get back. Drake sees him in that state and she'll be more likely to cradle his head between her bosoms!"

"Maybe not," Simon said hopefully, "not if we do it right. We've tried the shock tactics with the tape. If we can work through it logically…"

"No."

"…Like I was saying yesterday…"

"No."

"…and start from the bottom up…"

"Are you not listening to me, Shoe-Boy?" Gene started to grow angry, "Keats is too bloody dangerous – you really don't want to go there."

"…if we can find out what corrupted him…"

"I said _no!"_

"…Then maybe we can work out how to undo it. Change him back."

Gene grasped Simon by the jumper and pulled him forward causing him to gasp a little in shock and surprise.

"Listen, Simon," Gene's angry actions and concerned tone were at odds with each other, "that is not a man in there. That is a monster, and whatever turned him that way, he's too far gone to turn back the clock."

"Don't you want to know though?" asked Simon, "Don't you even want to know what changed him? To stop it happening to someone else? To change him back and get rid of that dark cloud that's _always_ hanging in your sky?"

"It can't be done, Simon!" Gene cried, "All the tapes in the world are not going to change that pencil-necked twat, and anyone who thinks otherwise might as well have their tongue up his backside!"

Kim looked on, slightly amused and slightly disturbed by their fight. She wondered momentarily if she should step in and intervene as Simon grabbed Gene's hand and pushed it away from his jumper, checking it for pulled stitches.

"That is enough of the homo-erotic tension - _jeez!"_ she cried, "stop it! How is this helping?"

Simon shook his head slowly.

"Give me a chance, Gene," he asked, "just one chance. Let me at least look, and see what can find out. If I fail, I fail. You can say I told you so, kick my arse and ride roughshod over me until kingdom come. But at least then I'll know."

Gene stared at Simon. He couldn't seem to get it through his head how dangerous this would be. The thought of trying to delve into Keats's history and the evilness that enveloped him for life terrified him inside, and there wasn't much that scared Gene Hunt. Why was Simon so dead set on this, he wondered. Why did he feel such a need to find that human side? There was a serious, determined look in Simon's eyes. It wasn't one he could argue with.

"Even if I lost me marbles and let you do this" he began gruffly, "where would you start looking?"

Simon drew in his breath and shook his head slowly. He hated to admit it but he hadn't even thought about that. He closed his eyes for a moment.

"I'd… I'd have to start somewhere," he whispered, "maybe I can hack the network at Fenchurch West. It can't be that complicated or secure. Or maybe there's some stuff back in CID from when he was here before? Or maybe," his eyes travelled up the building again, "maybe there's –" he paused. The light was off. _"Shit!"_

Gene frowned.

"There's shit?" he frowned, "where?" he started checking his shoe.

"No!" cried Simon, "the lights off! He's leaving. He must be leaving."

Gene prepared to start the car.

"And we'll be on his tail," he said.

Simon hesitated. He chewed on his lip and looked from side to side. Then he put his hand on the door and said,

"_You_ will be. I'm going in."

Gene wasn't sure what Simon was talking about.

"In where?"

"There," Simon peered up at the window.

"You have got to be pulling my angry, twitching, pain-inflicting leg," Gene said, threatening to kick Simon if he carried out his statement.

"Think about it, Gene," Simon pleaded, "that place up there could house anything – any evidence about what changed him… who he is… who he _was."_

"Or it could contain a Simon-killing device, or fires of hell, or _Wham_ memorabilia!" Gene cried, "Shoebury, don't be a bloody idiot."

"I'm not, I'm using my initiative," said Simon. He drew in his breath and opened the car door, preparing to make a fast exit. A moment of panic flashed through Gene. The thought of Simon laying himself open to attack from some essence of Keats that lurked within those walls gave him a real sense of fear. But at the same time he couldn't deny that the determination he saw in Simon's eyes was the kind of look that would lead to success and progress. Conflicted between his need to keep Simon safe and his hope for him to turn up the goods to chase the monster away from their lives for good, Gene felt something snap inside him

"_Simon!"_ he cried after him as he left the car.

Simon hesitated and glanced around.

"What?"

Gene hesitated, just for a moment, then he reached into the glove compartment, rummaged around and pulled out a packet of tablets.

"Here." He handed them to Simon who looked at them blankly.

"Diarrhoea tablets?"

Gene looked at him grimly.

"There could be Ridgeley autographs in there," he said seriously.

Simon's stomach lurched. He hadn't thought of that. But it was too late to change his mind now. He gave Gene a thankful nod and a nervous smile, then turned and raced around the side of the building before Keats could emerge and catch him lurking.

Gene felt his heart racing. He cursed himself for it. Was a DCI supposed to care so much for his team? Probably not, he thought. But he did. He couldn't help it. It was a part of his make-up.

"_There he is,"_ hissed Kim as Keats crossed to his car, climbed in and started the engine.

"Right," Gene mumbled. He turned the key in the ignition of the Fiat and watched Keats pull out of the car park before starting the chase and making to follow him. His heart carried on thumping as he drove, one eye on the car before him and one on the rear view mirror as The Falcon Building grew smaller and more distant. He'd only driven for ten, fifteen seconds at the most before something inside him caused him to take an action he hadn't expected. Was it his conscience? His curiosity? Was it something in his gut? He wasn't sure, but something overtook him and placed his foot squarely on the brakes. The tyres squealed to a halt, sending Kim rocketing into the seat in front and giving a yell.

"What the hell was that for, Guv?" she cried, rubbing her head, as though her hangover wasn't making her brain thump enough already.

Gene sighed. He took a deep breath and began to reverse.

"We're going back" he mumbled.

"Back?" cried Kim, "_why?"_

Gene gave a sigh of frustration.

"Call me stupid but I sort of worry about that man," he muttered, "and I don't want to see 'im toasting on the end of Keats's fork. I can't let him go in alone."

He returned to his previous spot and stepped out the car.

"_Guv?"_ Kim called.

Gene turned around.

"Keep the engine going," he advised, "might need to make a quick getaway. Especially if the dulcet tones of _Wham!_ start playing."

Kim nodded slowly.

"Be careful," she said quietly.

"Caution is my middle name," said Gene. He turned and began to walk toward the building, adding quietly, "of course, _'liar'_ is my other middle name. Caution be damned."

As he took up the chase to catch up with Simon he felt a strange energy in the air. He couldn't explain it. Something was happening; building in the atmosphere. For the strangest moment he could almost catch the scent of Alex as he ran to the fire escape, like her perfume danced upon the breeze. He hoped that was a sign; a sign that whatever they found in Keats's lair would lead Bolly home, where she belonged.

"This is one episode of _Through the Keyhole _I never wanted to see," he mumbled ad he caught up with Simon_."Oi, Shoebury."_

Simon jumped out of his skin and glanced around. The sight of a flustered Gene on his tail was a complete surprise.

"What the hell are you doing?" he cried.

"Raiding Jimbo's drinks cabinet for a start," Gene told him, "and after that we'll see what else he's got."

The gesture wasn't lost on Simon. For Gene, visiting the enemy's lair was a major ordeal. Maybe Gene _did_ 'do' friendship after all.

"Thanks," he said quietly with a grateful smile.

"You can thank me by not buying me a jumper for Christmas," Gene told him and pushed past him to lead the quest. _This was it,_ he realised. Time to face up to the one thing that scared the living daylights out of him. And for Gene Hunt to admit that – even to himself – it must have been something pretty fucking terrifying.

"I'm warning you though, Shoebury," he said, "one _Wham_ song and you won't see me for dust."

Simon nodded.

"Duly noted," he said.


	50. Chapter 25, 2011: Contrapuntalism

_**A/N: A double dose tonight – These two important chapters have to be read together. I hope you enjoy them!**_

**Chapter Twenty Five: 2011**

_One step at a time, Alex. Just take it one step at a time._

Alex meant that very literally as she began to walk into the flat that had previously been home to evil personified. Convincing her feet to take a step forward was the hardest part. They felt so heavy as they dragged along the ground. They really didn't seem to want to press on. She felt Robin's hand on her shoulder; a gesture that was supposed to be bringing her comfort and support but was needed just as much by him.

The smell was the first thing they noticed. It was the stench of urine where various members of the public, so disgusted by what they heard of him on the news, paid his flat a visit to leave him a little goodbye present. The overwhelming stench of ammonia was accompanied by the stale smoke that clung to the walls and choked Robin as he breathed in.

The floor was full of litter and junk, which led Alex to trip a few times. Picking her way through the mess of stroon papers and broken belongings, she wondered why there was still so much within the flat. Why hadn't more been taken as evidence?

Her heavy feet arrived in the lounge with the rest of her in tow. The first thing that made her gasp in horror wasn't the graffiti or the urine smell or even the mess of the place; it was the wall. The wall of photographs that stretched almost from floor to ceiling. There were gaps now – some had been taken away as evidence, others stolen by trespassers as 'souvenirs' while some had merely fallen to the floor with time.

But even so, the many photos and enlargements that graced the wall shocked Alex deeply and brought to her mind a terror that she couldn't describe. She took a step closer, tried to take in the sheer magnitude of Keats's insanity in the real world, but the imagery that adorned the wall shook her up inside.

"Robin," she whispered, "how did you and Simon survive this? How did _anyone_ survive contact with him?"

Robin shook his head slowly. He felt a horrible anxiety in his gut. It tore him up, tying knots in every inch of his insides.

"I don't know," he whispered, "God, I'd forgotten how bad…" he walked up slowly to the wall and reached one hand gently out towards a photograph of Simon. It was a simple shot of him leaving the flat; he was dressed casually, maybe going for a check-up or to the shops. His face was neutral and natural. Sometimes Robin forgot that look. The images he recalled most often in his mind were of Simon laughing or smiling. How had he forgotten the calm look on his face as he just went about his daily routine? Was his memory of Simon fading? God, he hoped not. He took the picture down and held it close by his side.

Alex moved slowly around the room, her eyes taking in every low, twisted and horrible inch of the place. Even the air felt laden with evil.

"Where do we begin?" she whispered.

"They found most of the incriminating stuff in his bedroom," Robin told her, "it looked like he hadn't actually slept in there for years. His couch was his bed and his bedroom was his… well," he sighed, "the focus of his wrongdoings. The shit they found here…"

Alex felt a strong sense of fear growing inside her as she followed Robin through to the bedroom and she knew that whatever lay ahead there it wouldn't be good. She breathed in deeply, trying to settle her nerves, but took in a lungful of the strong stench of ammonia and choked a little.

"I wish I'd brought an air freshener," she mumbled.

They stepped into his bedroom and Robin fumbled for the light switch. The fact that the power was still on surprised them both, even if the one light bulb that hung from the ceiling didn't shed a lot of light on the room.

The boxes were the first thing Alex noticed. There were boxes upon boxes of papers and files, some in random cardboard containers and others that seemed to be official police evidence boxes.

"Robin, why is all this stuff still here?" she asked.

"What do you mean?"

"If this is evidence then why wasn't it removed?" she asked, "surely after everything he did they'd need every scrap of evidence they could get their hands on."

Robin looked down, feeling a little choked.

"Alex," he whispered, "Keats was dead. He could never be brought to justice. The people in charge of his appointment were shamed with their terrible error. The full, far reaching impact of his actions brought enough negative attention to the Police. It wasn't exactly a cover up… it was more a case of acknowledging as little as possible. _Out of sight out of mind_." He paused, summing up the facts as simply as he could; "The less evidence they took, the less they had to admit to. When they put him in that position they fucked up big-time. It was supposed to be a post where he was dotting 'i's and crossing 't's. Ticking boxes and stamping forms. Instead, he was inadvertently given all the power he needed."

Alex felt sick inside. Sick, horrified and disgusted.

"Why did you and Simon never push for more?" she cried, "why didn't you demand a full and thorough investigation?"

Robin swallowed.

"We wanted to forget it every bit as much as the people who put him in that position of power did," he whispered, "but for very different reasons. They didn't want the public on their tail – we just wanted the memory of Keats off of ours."

Alex looked down. She took in a slightly ragged breath and sighed. She might not have made the same choice in their place but she could understand their thinking.

"I think we'd better start looking through these files," she said quietly, "we don't have that much time. We can always take some back if we have to."

"Not sure Kim will be happy about filling her car with Keats Artefacts," Robin mumbled as he moved towards a pile of boxes and began rummaging through the top one while Alex shuffled to a pile on the other side of the room.

She lifted the top box from the stack, sat it on the floor and sank down beside it. She picked out a collection of files and began to flick through them all, one by one. They seemed unrelated; regular mental health assessments. Nothing coma-related, nothing remotely interesting. She sighed and pushed that box aside, pulled another down to her level and started to go through it. There were some papers on the top so she lifted them up and began to open the top file but found her attention drawn to the contents in the rest of the box beneath the files. There were tapes; audio tapes mostly with a few video tapes alongside them, and even a couple of DVDs. She picked up a couple of audio tapes and turned them over in her hands.

"_Sam Tyler?"_ she murmured as she read the labels. That name seemed familiar. She couldn't quite make the connection though. Was it someone she'd worked with? She didn't remember a Sam Tyler at Fenchurch East but the name really seemed to ring a bell. She closed her eyes and tried to place it. It was clear she still had gaps in her memories of Gene's world to try to fill. As she thought, she could hear a sentence playing through her mind. Gene's voice. Angry. Frustrated.

'_Sam Tyler was a friend of mine. Sam Tyler died. End of.'_

She exhaled and tried to bring the memory into clearer focus but it was elusive, running away from her thoughts as she tried to focus. It was no good. She couldn't push it any further.

She placed the tapes to one side in her _'To Keep'_ pile and continued to look through the rest of the contents of the box.

Robin had already thrown his first box aside.

"Not even going there," he mumbled.

Alex looked up in alarm.

"What is it?" she asked, fearing the worst.

Robin swallowed.

"Andrew Ridgeley Fan Club magazines," he whispered.

Alex turned a definite shade of green.

"Oh god, Robin," she whispered, "I'm so sorry… I had no idea we'd find anything that bad here."

"It's OK," Robin said firmly, "I can handle it."

He moved onto a second box and lifted the top file. He seemed to have stumbled upon Keats's personal papers, his contracts of employment and compensation forms relating to the initial attack that led to his coma. Robin sighed and flinched a little. It was a reminder that Keats was, after all, a man in the beginning too. Just like him, or Simon, or anyone.

He put them down and reached into the box, pulling out a sheet of paper. It looked highly official with stamps and logos all over the place, adorning a letter confirming his initial successful recruitment to the Police force in 1992. Robin stared at the sheet before him but barely had time to take in a word of it when the most peculiar sensation overtook him. It felt a little as though another hand laid over his own. It made him shudder all over, from head to toe. Strangely the sensation wasn't bad or eerie; it felt warm. _Tender. _He looked around him as though expecting someone to be standing there, touching the fingers that gripped the paper but aside from himself and Alex the room was as empty as anything.

"Robin?"

Alex's voice made Robin jump and he spun around as though waking from a strange dream.

"Huh?" he gasped quickly.

Alex looked at him in concern.

"Are you alright? You looked…" she trailed off. How _did_ he look? "…you looked _enchanted."_

Robin swallowed and shook himself a little. That's how he'd felt; as though caught by a charming, warm moment in time that made little sense to him. He stared at his hand. The feeling of a touch was fading now, but the strange sense of warmth remained.

"Sorry, Alex," he said quietly, "I felt… strange. It felt like something…" he closed his eyes for a moment. "Doesn't matter."

Alex hesitated. She felt concerned about Robin's strange moment and the expression that still told of something he wasn't ready to share.

"Are you sure you're OK?" she asked.

Robin nodded.

"I'm fine," he whispered, "really." He paused. "Must have been warm air from the radiator."

Alex hesitated. The radiator was clearly off, the room cold and damp, but she didn't want to push Robin. She knew how hard it was for him to even be there in the room.

She dug into another box and read in silence for several minutes until she gave a little gasp and her hand rose to her face.

"Litton," she whispered.

"What?"

Alex glanced up.

"I know him… Gene knew him from Manchester. His work brought him down to CID in eighty three." She flinched a little as she recalled what her nightmare had revealed about the hours that followed.

"He's a coma patient? Asked Robin.

"No," said Alex, "this man knew him. His own coma experience… he was working with DCI Litton."

As she continued through the box she realised it was full of reports from coma patients who'd been to the other side but had worked with DCIs throughout the country. Herself and Gene were far from the only ones who took that vital role. In that one box of files she counted ten, twelve different names alone. But something came through strongly from the words of the patients as they described their experiences.

"It's like they hardly care," she whispered.

"Who?"

"These other people," Alex said quietly. She looked up at him. "The DCIs. The other stations. It's all so cold. So unfeeling. It's like they don't have a heart, all they have is a job."

Robin looked at her a little sadly. He wasn't sure what to say.

"Maybe that's what makes you and Gene different," he said quietly, "maybe that's what makes you so strong."

Alex gave a tiny smile. If that was true then she needed to get home for more reasons than one.

For the best part of an hour they sat and read, collected, absorbed and discovered. They found much that disturbed them – not least of all an entire back catalogue of _Wham_ records – but the one thing they could not find was any hint or clue to how Alex could find her way home.

"Alex, it's starting to get light outside now," Robin told her gently as the slightest hint of blue crept into the dark sky. She nodded sadly. Her heart started to sink as the sun rose. She'd felt so certain that something inside that Keats's flat would hold the key. He'd fired the bullet that sent her to this strange world; she couldn't shake the feeling that he was the one who could send her home too. But with Keats himself long dead and the flat offering no clues she was fast running out of options.

She felt almost tearful and a little angry with herself as she conceded this fight. She had been so focused, so certain that she would find her key to getting back to 1995 that she hadn't thought any further than the raid on his place. Their idea had come to nothing and no one had bothered to think of a plan B.

She knew that, with the arrival of the dawn, they would have to leave before they were discovered. Their time was running out – with footage of her and Robin running all night on News 24 and Evan making emotional appeals with his beard left, right and centre it was only a matter of time before someone would pinpoint Kim as being involved in their current predicament too and they'd have nowhere safe left to hide.

She finally got to her feet, dusted herself off a little and gave a deep, despondent sigh.

"We'd better get back down to Kim," she said quietly, "we'll take some of these, just in case there's a – _Aaaarrgghhhhhh!"_ she looked at Robin and noticed for the first time that he seemed to have had a Keats makeover in the last few minutes, "Robin, what the _hell_ are you doing? Trying to kill me? Give me a _heart attack?"_ Her heart thumped in horror as she looked at the trench coat-wearing and bespectacled look Robin had adopted. "It's not bloody Halloween for another nine months!"

"It's a disguise!" Robin protested.

"It's an abomination!" Alex corrected, "Seriously, Robin, you –" she tried to get her breath back, "- you even _look_ like him in those glasses! Take them off!"

Robin looked a little hurt.

"It wasn't exactly easy for me to put this crap on, you know!" he protested, "looking like that Turdmeister. I'm just trying to stay hidden here!"

"And the best way to do that is by dressing as the devil in glasses?" Alex cried. She pressed her hand to her chest, still fearing she was going to have a heart attack. "I'd rather you wear a wig and put on a dress!"

"Oh don't you start," Robin frowned, remembering Kim's idle threats the night before. Crossly he took off the glasses and shrugged his arms out of the coat which he threw to the floor dramatically. He made a huffing noise and began to storm forwards to leave the room but he'd only taken two steps when his foot caught a floorboard awkwardly and slipped right down a gap at one end while the other side shot up in the air. _"Fuck"!"_ he gasped, his leg disappearing from view.

"Robin!" Alex cried. She raced to him and helped him to remove his foot from the hole, pulling the floorboard out of its loosened surroundings and freeing Robin in the process.

"I lost my bloody shoe," he mumbled, staring into the darkness below.

"Oh for goodness sake, it can't be that deep," mumbled Alex, "there can't be that much of a gap to the ceiling of the flat below." She knelt down and began to scoop around with her hand in the darkness. "Hang on, I think I've found it…" she frowned, "err… or maybe not."

"What?" Robin asked nervously.

"Whatever it was, it had a long thin tail and ran away so I don't think it was your shoe," she said.

"Oh _Ewwwww!"_ Robin cried, "rats!"

"That sounds about right for somewhere Keats lived," Alex mumbled. She reached in a little further, "_Oh!_ Here…" she frowned. "That's not a shoe."

"What is it this time? An antelope?"

Alex bit her lip nervously and gripped the item a little harder. She carefully pulled it through the hole in the floor and revealed a dingy, dusty red folder to Robin.

"Well well," she said quietly, "what do we have here?"

Robin swallowed hard.

"If that turns out to be a dossier on Andrew Ridgeley then I'm leaving," he said. Nervously, Alex opened up the file and pulled out the papers within. "What is it?" asked Robin.

Alex leafed through the sheets one at a time.

"I'm not sure," she whispered, "names… names of police officers. Some pretty high up by the looks of this."

"Coma patients?"

"None of these names appeared in the other files," said Alex. She flicked to another sheet of names. "These ones aren't officers though," she said. He name scanned down the list until one name stood out like a beacon and caused her to gasp. "Oh God - _Evan,"_ she whispered.

Robin choked a little.

"What?"

"Evan's on this list," she said quietly.

"What kind of list is it?" Robin frowned.

Alex shook her head slightly.

"I've no idea, but unless _Mary Burville_ or _Jayne Waters_ has a particularly serious facial hair problem then I'm guessing they're not beard models."

"Why would Evan be on a list of names under Keats's floor board?" Robin asked.

Alex shot him a glare.

"Don't ask obvious questions like that, Robin, you're not in an episode of Scooby Doo." She flicked through another page and another until she came to a print out of an online bank account. "What's this?"

"Keats's bank account?" frowned Robin.

Alex scanned the details.

"This isn't Keats's," she whispered as her hand rose to her mouth involuntarily and she gave a sharp gasp. "Oh my god…"

"What?" Robin felt a cold dread settle over his shoulders.

"Layton," Alex whispered.

Robin's eyes opened wide.

"What?"

"This is Layton's bank account," Alex whispered, "Arthur Layton… that's the same man, isn't it?" she looked at him with fear in her eyes, "that's him, isn't it? The man who shot me here?"

Robin nodded slowly as he chewed ferociously on his lip.

"It is," he whispered.

Alex looked for a date on the printout.

"Two thousand and seven," she whispered, "this is the year before I was shot in this world."

"What the hell is Keats doing messing with Layton?" Robin couldn't make any sense of it.

"Or, what the hell is Layton doing messing with _Keats?"_ Alex countered quietly. She hesitated. "Whatever the reason, the truth is in here, Robin. We've just got to work out what it is. She scrambled back to her feet and stumbled to the door, the folder clasped tightly in her hand. "Come on Robin, let's get back to Kim's."

"Alright, alright," Robin got to his feet, grabbed some of the other files they'd set aside and followed her out of the door.

In their panic they'd made it down the entire fire escape before Robin realised something. With a gasp of frustration and annoyance he cried,

"My shoe!"

"I'll fashion you one out of paper mache!" Alex cried behind her, racing to the car. She couldn't dawdle for a moment longer. She had in her hands a link; a connection between the two shootings. It was a twist she hadn't been expecting and one that chilled her to the core. She was still trapped in a strange world and in a year she didn't know but her 1995 home and Gene felt just a little closer now. In fact, she could almost catch his scent on the breeze.

"I'm coming home," she whispered determinedly. And she damn well meant that with every fibre of her being.


	51. Chapter 25, 1995: Legato

_**A/N: The second of tonight's double dose x**_

**Chapter Twenty Five: 1995**

With great trepidation, Simon entered Keats's flat with the help of a helpful shoulder shove in the direction of the door from Gene. He looked around with such deep nervousness that he felt himself tremble conspicuously from head to toe. He felt grateful for Gene's company and support - just knowing that he was there gave him strength and encouragement. They'd barely taken a few steps inside when Gene spotted something he really didn't wish to see.

"Oh shit, there it is," he mumbled.

Simon glanced back at Gene and then followed his gaze to a framed photograph on the wall which sent him scurrying around behind Gene with a cry of;

"_Shit!"_

Gene froze and frowned. Then he looked behind him.

"Shoebury," he began questioningly, "Am I right in thinking that you are _hiding behind me?"_

He heard Simon gulp.

"Uh, yes…" he squeaked.

Gene sighed.

"Fine," he said, "fine, if you're that scared of one little autograph then you stay right there and let the Gene Genie protect you." He paused and licked his lips. "Of course, standing there you'll be in prime position to experience the physical effects of being in close proximity of the Ridgeley autograph…"

"_Shit,"_ Simon cursed, scurrying out from behind him.

"Exactly," Gene said smugly.

Simon rubbed his head and looked on in horror.

"Gene, I thought you said you'd destroyed this a few weeks ago!" he cried.

"Shot the one in his other house," Gene informed him.

Simon sighed and shook his head slowly.

"No man should have two Ridgeley autographs," he said.

"We already established Keats is not a man," Gene reminded him.

Simon nodded slowly.

"Look, can we go and check one of the other rooms first?" he asked, "I can't face that thing staring at me. Not yet. My stomach's already churning"

"You want to go and check his bog?" asked Gene.

"No," sighed Simon, "We'll go through there to –" his finger rose to point to the bedroom door but halfway there he froze. Almost like a scene in a movie a terrible, vivid flashback played through his mind. It came upon him in an instant, out of nowhere; burst through his mind like fire and sent pain through his chest. He flinched horribly and his eyes shut tightly. "Oh _God,_" he whispered, "oh my God."

Gene looked at him curiously.

"Either you've just found religion or you've spotted another autograph," he said, a little fearfully.

Simon's eyes opened and fixed upon Gene. His lip waivered as he spoke.

"I've been here before," he whispered.

Gene frowned.

"When Susannah –"

"No, I've been _in here_ before," Simon pointed his finger to the ground, indicating he meant the flat, "I've been in this place. But not in this time."

Gene felt the hairs on the back of his neck start to stand on end.

"What do you mean, Shoebury?" he asked

"Back home," Simon's voice was quiet and shaken, "two thousand and ten. He was still living here then. He must have stayed in the same place ever since he woke from his coma." He turned away for a moment. He couldn't face looking Gene in the eye. A feeling of shame and horror washed over him as he began quietly, "they showed us this place… after he died. They asked if we wanted to see it, and we said yes. I-I can't remember why…" he swallowed, "we thought it might help us to come to terms with it. Put it behind us." He turned slowly to the wall behind him and walked over to it. His hand rose up and gently touched the bright white paintwork. "There were photographs," his voice was strained, "of me. Floor to ceiling. He'd followed me, and Robin too, for weeks. There were hundreds." He slowly withdrew his hand and turned his head downwards to the floor. "They found all sorts in there, Gene," her whispered, "hundreds of files, drugs, pictures – it was worse than you could ever imagine."

He found he was unable to speak any more. He fell silent, shaking and scared, fearing he might begin to cry. That was the last thing he wanted to do. He concentrated hard on keeping his emotions in check, taking a deep breath top quell the sob that threatened to emerge. He found a surprising hand of support on his shoulder and glanced around.

"You want to find the man," he said quietly, "don't let the monster spoil that for you. Pull yerself together and get in that room, find what you're looking for and prove me wrong."

Simon looked Gene in the eye at last. He saw something in his expression he hadn't seen before. It was faith; _trust._ Slowly he nodded, then he set his jaw firmly and began to walk to the doorway of Keats's bedroom.

He pushed the door open slowly and stepped inside. The bedroom was almost immaculate. Unlived-in. He realised that Keats had left that room more or less alone and based himself on the couch.

"Just like at home," Simon said quietly, remembering the flat he'd seen in 2010.

"So tell me, Shoebury-Thomas," Gene began, for once remembering to use Simon's new name, "what exactly are we looking for here? Garlic? Kryptonite?"

"I don't _know_ what we're looking for," Simon sighed, "try looking over there in his bedside drawers."

Gene frowned at him.

"I never thought I'd be rooting around in Jimbo's drawers for anything," he mumbled.

"I'll try over here," Simon told him, pulling out a few filing boxes from beneath a small desk.

Gene rummaged through a drawer cautiously, never too sure of what he was going to find.

"Few too many pencils in here for my liking," he said, "anything interesting over there?"

Simon pulled a handful of papers out of the first box and sighed.

"Not yet," he said, "these all seem to belong to the _younger_ him. The one that's in the coma." He glanced at Gene. "Can't we just go and switch off his life support system or something?"

"You want to spend eternity in prison as a cop killer?" Gene asked.

Simon turned away and looked back at the files in his hands.

"It was only a suggestion," he mumbled. He put down the paperwork he'd been looking at and pulled out another sheet of paper instead. "Hmm, Keats' original letter of acceptance into –" he froze as he held the paper in his hand. There was something strange; a sensation. A feeling that settled upon him. A warmth that ran through his fingers as he gripped the sheet. It was the strangest thing but he could swear that he felt the warmth of a hand below his own. A strange feeling of affection and tenderness soared through his body. He couldn't explain it – couldn't even begin to. It made him gasp a little and close his eyes.

"Shoebury?"

Gene's tone of concern pushed his eyes open again and he turned around, a little shaken.

"I feel weird," he breathed; the tingling, warm sensation still adorning his fingers.

"That'll be the autograph," Gene told him gruffly, "you want to go and take some of those tablets."

"_No,"_ Simon sighed, "my hand…" as he spoke the sensation began to fade. He closed his eyes for just a moment, trying to hold onto the feeling. "It was strange. I felt warm. It was like…" He paused. There was no way he could explain it to Gene without being accused of either a) losing his marbles, b) having jumpers for brains or c) watching one episode of the X Files too many. He shook his head. "Doesn't matter," he whispered, "must have been warm air from the radiator." Still feeling shaken he pushed the papers back into the box and put it away under the desk. "I don't think we're going to find anything in here, Gene, this is all his younger self's stuff. We're going to have to try the lounge."

"Ridgeley City," Gene said grimly. He nodded and sighed. "Let's fire up the Diocalm."

It was with some reluctance that they trailed back into the lounge, purposefully turning a cold shoulder to one particular photograph.

"I can still feel it staring at me," Simon shuddered.

"What's this, a new X Files plot?" Gene asked, "Deadly autograph, stares at you from the wall and swoops when yer back's turned?"

"_Yeeee-arggh!"_ Simon spun around quickly to check that was not the case. "Phew," the autograph seemed to be motionless and silent on the wall. It still turned his stomach though.

"Can we get on with this?" Gene asked crossly, "It's just I'd rather not sit around in Jimbo's lounge, soaking up the atmosphere. I can almost feel horns and a tail sprouting."

"Alright," Simon sat down on the couch and pulled a bundle of papers that were stacked on the floor behind it onto his lap, "I'll check these, you go and look through those folders on the table." He sank back into the sofa and adjusted his position a little. It was soft and cosy, a far cry from the hard seat in the Fiat he'd been suffering all night. He gave a deep sigh of contentment as he leaned back and began to read.

"Why are you making sex noises on Jimbo's couch?" Gene demanded.

Simon sat bolt-upright, knocking papers to the floor.

"I was not!" he cried crossly, "it was soft and comfy, that's all!"

"Yer_ brain's_ soft and comfy," Gene told him, grabbing some folders and starting to check through. With the very first one, he struck gold. "Oh, hang on. Looks like Jimbo's found himself a little side line."

"What do you mean?" frowned Simon.

"Looks like Fenchurch West CID isn't paying enough for him," Gene continued, "he's found himself a way to make a bit of pocket money." He took the folder across to Simon and handed him a sheet of paper.

"What's this?" he asked. He scanned the details for a moment, then his mouth dropped open. _"Nailer?"_

"That's right," said Gene, "his drug-dealing lodger seems to have struck up a little partnership with our friend Jim."

"But Nailer's still locked up," frowned Simon, "he's awaiting trial isn't he?"

"And look who's helping him with some of 'is business dealings while he's inside," said Gene. He continued to look through some of the other papers from the folder. "Looks like those two have struck up a heart-warming friendship."

"What's he doing?" frowned Simon, "is he actually handling the narcotics?"

Gene shook his head slowly.

"Jimbo's too smart for that," he said, "literally keeping his nose clean there." He put some of the papers down and sank beside Simon on the couch. "This 'ere says…" his face developed a curious expression. "Bloody hell, this really _is_ comfortable!"

"Told you," muttered Simon, taking some of the papers from Gene.

"There's a list of names here," Gene took one sheet from the pile, "I know a few of these. Some kind of figures by their side."

Simon peered at it.

"Payment? Amounts? Pick up dates?"

"This must be Nailer's equivalent of a payroll," Gene commented. He flicked through some more sheets. "Got Jimbo doing the accountant's job – hey-ho, what's this?"

Simon looked at him incredulously.

"_Hey-ho?"_ he repeated.

"I'm experimenting with language," Gene mumbled. He let all his papers go to the floor but one now. It was a hand-written sheet in Nailer's handwriting with amendments from Keats in various places.

"Well, what is it then?" asked Simon.

"Something a bit less official than his payroll," Gene mumbled, "_Sweep up._ What does he mean 'sweep up'?" He pointed to the words at the top of the page.

"Clean-up operation?" Simon shrugged, "covering his tracks?"

Gene shook his head slowly.

"Don't think so," he said quietly, "more names on here."

"Covering the tracks of his supply line? Or people dealing for him?"

"Maybe clearing up as much evidence as possible to help him when he's standing in the dock," Gene wondered then shook his head. "No…. don't see how that could fit" A frown appeared on his face right then and his expression darkened. "Bloody hell."

"What?" Simon asked.

"That's a blast from the past," said Gene, "literally."

"What? Who?" Simon frowned and tried to see what had shaken Gene. He followed his finger to a name on the page. _"Layton?"_ Simon knew that name, but it was for different reasons to Gene. He looked up, his mouth hanging wide open and stared Gene right in the eye. "But…. That can't be _Arthur_ Layton?"

"Unless Layton is a popular name amongst dealing piss-artists then I think it's a safe bet to assume he's the same one."

Simon bit his lip.

"Layton shot Alex," he said quietly, "in two thousand and eight. I read all about it in her file." He took a deep breath. "He was never caught."

"He's good at disappearing," Gene muttered, "nice guy that one. Good with explosives too."

Something sparked in Simon's head. His eyes opened wide and he scrambled off the Extremely Comfortable Couch.

"Fuck!" he cried, "Gene, the bomb! The bomb in Nailer's computer. The one that destroyed half the station.

A terrible realisation dawned over Gene. It started at his shoulders like a ten ton weight and filtered through every inch of his body.

"No," he whispered, "couldn't be."

Simon looked at him seriously.

"You said yourself at the time Nailer had no history of using explosives," he reminded him, "that's why no one thought to check for boobytraps."

"Nailer never laid blame on anyone else," Gene reminded him.

"Maybe he owed Layton," Simon suggested, "or Layton owed him. Both involved in dealing."

"Layton's not quite the big fish that Nailer claims to be," said Gene.

"We don't know what could have happened in the past," Simon shrugged, "Maybe Layton worked for Nailer at some point? Maybe the other way around? Maybe Nailer knew about Layton's past and asked for a favour in exchange for not handing him in?" He exhaled and closed his eyes. _"Sweep up…"_ he said quietly, trying to work out what it meant, "Maybe… maybe trying to clear the path linking him with Layton?"

"Doesn't make sense," sighed Gene, "if Layton built the bomb then wouldn't Nailer have been itching to drop him in it? Save him a few years off his sentence at least?"

"Yeah, but if Layton spilled that Nailer commissioned him to build the bomb that'll put those years right back on," Simon reminded him, "Nailer's not pinned blame on anyone but not claimed he built it either. He's been playing the _'what bomb?' _game. I think at one point he blamed the explosion on the sprouts they served in the canteen."

Gene gave a frustrated sigh, partly in confusion about the connection between Nailer, Keats and Layton and partly because Simon had reminded him how close they were to Christmas and that an abundance of sprouts in the canteen was looming.

"So what's Layton's name doing on a list under Keats's care?" he asked quietly.

Simon looked at him. His heart was sinking a little.

"Both of Alex's would-be killers," he said quietly, "connected, right here. _Right there,"_ he pointed to the sheet of paper. "Layton and Keats both almost killed her with their bullets. She survived them both. And now they're linked." He shook his head slowly. "What the hell is Keats doing messing with Nailer and Layton?"

"Not sure who's messing with who in that tangle," said Gene. He shuddered as he looked around. He could almost feel the evilness oozing out of the walls. "Don't fancy sticking around for much longer," he said, "maybe it's that Ridgeley picture but my guts aren't feeling right."

"I know what you mean," sighed Simon, "OK, take that file and we'll go through it back at the office. I'll just finish looking through this pile and then we'll leave. I don't think he's got much here. We need to look for something going back further than this. Could we get hold of any of his stuff from when he was here before?" he opened a folder, "I mean, when he was…. Uh…" he trailed off as he read the sheet on the top. He gulped. His skin turned a beautiful shade of green.

"Shoebury, you're looking seasick," Gene pointed out.

Simon gasped and drew his hand to his mouth in horror.

"Oh God, Gene," he whispered, "It's awful."

Gene felt his pulse rocketing.

"What?" he steeled himself for the worst as Simon gulped back bile and read out loud;

_"Dear Jim, thank you for your continued interest in my career, your 1,354th letter and your many complimentary words about Club Tropicana. I enclose yet another autograph for your collection. Unfortunately after much thought I have decided I would prefer not to record a cover version of 'That Ol' Devil Called Love' with you. I do not feel your coat and specs are compatible with my image. Also, can you please stop following me home after concerts? I know it's you, I can smell your cigarette smoke and you've dropped little D&C business cards all over my driveway."_

He couldn't bring himself to read any further and allowed the sheet of paper to float aimlessly to the ground.

Gene turned pale.

"You still got those tablets?" he asked.

Simon was really starting to regret his decision to raid Keats's flat.

"I think we should take some of this stuff and get out while we still have control over our bowels," he said.

"You were the one dead set on storming his castle," Gene pointed out.

"But the kind of stuff I wanted to find doesn't seem to be here," Simon said with disappointment, "there's his stuff from before his coma and his stuff since he came back to ninety five but nothing from when he was here bfeore. I need stuff from when he went back the first time when you met him in eighty three." He paused. "Where was he living then?"

"What makes you think I'd have a clue?" cried Gene, "I never went round for a sleepover with Uncle Jim!"

Simon sighed.

"Alright," he tried, "what about when he turned up at Fenchurch East. He had an office there, right? In the basement?" he hesitated as Gene gave a reluctant nod. "That's where I got shot," he continued quietly, "where Alex saved me. Sent me back." Suddenly he began to feel a little choked. His first time in Gene' world and Alex's actions that sent him home felt like something of a dream; distant and removed from his thoughts. He remembered how easily Keats had manipulated him back then. He hadn't realised how deeply his sense of guilt still ran for what he did to Gene at the time.

"Yes," Gene said gruffly, "he's always enjoyed the delights of the lower levels."

"What happened to all his stuff, Gene?"

Gene exhaled loudly and rubbed his forehead.

"Basement was locked up the day he died," he said quietly, "No one's been down there since."

Simon bit his lip.

"Are all his files still down there?" he asked, "all his papers? His tapes and stuff?"

"Simon, that room has not been touched in a decade," Gene said quietly.

Simon nodded slowly, an idea forming in his head.

"So my next question –" he began but Gene cut him off.

"You already died in that room once," he interrupted, "I'm not all that happy about the idea of you going back for an encore."

"Nothing's going to _kill_ me down there!" Simon protested.

"Might suck out your soul though," Gene said quietly.

Simon looked down. He folded his hands in his lap.

"I'm not mad keen on the idea of spending time in a room where I died," he said bitterly, "but if it stops him doing the same thing to others… the same thing he's done already to far too many people… I'm willing to do it."

Gene stared at him. He was torn between his frustration at the stupidity Simon was displaying – the thought of anyone willingly venturing into Keats's history bewildered him – and his admiration for his persistence and guts. Simon had a courage far beyond that of which Gene had expected. He swallowed as he tried to compose his thoughts.

"Bit stuffy down there," he said

Simon nodded slowly.

"I'll take a fan," he said.

"Might be a few moths down there," Gene told him

"Like when you get out your wallet to buy a round?" Simon joked.

Gene wasn't laughing

"We locked that room for a reason," he said firmly, "whatever is down there.. whatever he left… I don't want it hurting you."

Simon breathed deeply

"We came this far," he said quietly.

Gene closed his eyes. It was clear that Simon wasn't going to be talked round. He was every bit as bloody stubborn as Gene was himself. It was a bit like the irresistible force meeting the immovable object. Finally, Gene decided to move, just this once.

"We'll go back to the station," he said grimly, "I'll give you the key. And I'll send Vickery down every fifteen minutes to check you haven't been _Wham!_ed to death."

Simon tried to smile but his expression was strained and anxious. It was, however, also grateful and appreciative.

"Whatever made him this way," he said, "I'll find it"

Gene swallowed again. He felt chills travelling through his veins.

"We should leave before he comes back looking for 'is packed lunch," he said quietly.

Simon nodded.

"Take those files," he said, "and I'll take that case." He pointed to a briefcase under the table.

"Why? What's in it?" asked Gene.

Simon shrugged.

"No idea," he said, "I just think it will really piss him off."

Gene looked at Simon with one eyebrow raised, then nodded. He liked that way of thinking.

"Time to make a quick exit," he decided, "I can feel a case of the Ridgeleys coming on."

He clutched his stomach as the autograph began to overwhelm him and together they gathered up what they needed to take, then left the flat. They could almost feel the energy lifting and clearing around them as they passed through the doors and escaped back into the world beyond.

It wasn't until they made their way back down the fire escape that Gene came to realise how close he'd felt to Alex – _his _Alex - all the time they'd been there. It struck him as strange. It felt almost as though they were breathing the same air. He shrugged the thought away, trying to focus instead on how to get her back. He didn't like the idea of Simon surrounding himself in Jimbo's old haunt but he couldn't deny that the truth was probably locked up there, below stairs.

He felt a sense of foreboding about the situation and knew that whatever Simon found could have far reaching consequences for them all. He knew that what lay down in the basement could never be good. He just hoped that there was something down there to bring his Alex back – and maybe even to get the devil off their backs for good.


	52. Chapter 26, 2011: Ravvivando

**Chapter Twenty Six: 2011**

Kim's fear level had been set to high the whole time Alex and Robin had been away. She wasn't even sure what she was afraid of, if she was honest. She knew Keats was long gone. There was no chance of him sneaking up behind the car and climbing surreptitiously into the back seat. But just being in the presence of that evilness, just being close to the place he'd lived, it filled her with a cold, dark dread.

She caught sight of two figures heading towards the car; one running with speed and determination; the other limping and lolloping, while looking fairly pissed off. Both reached the car and began to climb inside.

"Did you find anything?" she asked nervously.

"In a way," said Alex.

"I lost my shoe," said Robin.

Kim looked at him a little blankly.

"Uh," she swallowed, "OK."

"Kim, we found something ee weren't expecting," Alex began quietly, "there's a link between Keats and Layton."

"Layton shot Alex in two thousand and eight," Robin explained, "he was the one who sent Alex to Gene's world in the first place.

"What?" the connection shocked Kim as much as it had Alex and Robin.

"We don't understand what's connecting the two yet," Robin continued, "we've brought the files with us."

Kim nodded slowly.

"I'll drive you back home," she said, "but listen, we need to work out what to do next. I'm supposed to be at work in," she checked the clock on the dashboard, "just over an hour from now."

Alex bit her lip.

"Are you going?" she asked.

"I don't know," Kim said quietly, "if I go I might be able to stall things, if I call in sick they might get suspicious. We don't know if anyone heard Robin asking about his police dogs yesterday. John wouldn't have seen the news but some of the customers might have done."

Alex wasn't sure what to say. She hesitated for a moment

"Go to work, Kim," she said, "and we'll look through this as fast as we can."

"I'm worried about leaving you alone," Kim admitted.

"We won't trash the place," said Robin.

"That wasn't what I meant," said Kim,

"I know," Robin said sadly.

A silence descended as Kim started the car and began to drive away. No one spoke for the first few minutes, and when someone finally did speak it wasn't on a subject anyone had been expecting. From her place in the passenger seat, a tired and sombre Alex began,

"Kim?"

Kim glanced at her.

"Yeah?"

Alex bit her lip. It sounded silly in the scale of the situation bt there was one thing she needed to now.

"I do make it home in time for Christmas?" she asked, "Don't I?"

Kim glanced at her, surprised by the question. For someone in such a terrible situation it was such a genuine and human thing to worry about. Her heart melted a little. She looked at the anxious look on Alex's face and gave a distant smile.

"Yes, Alex," she said quietly, "you do make it home for Christmas.

Alex developed a little smile. It was strange, she thought but the idea of Gene being alone for Christmas truly made her heart ache. Knowing that she at least made it home for the festive season gave her a little hope. She sighed deeply.

"Thank you, Kim," she whispered.

Kim hesitated.

"Of course," she said, "you might not be feeling that pleased about it when the time comes."

Alex frowned.

"W-what do you mean?" she asked.

Kim glanced over her shoulder, her mind on the road ahead.

"Oh, you know," she shrugged, "there is that_…. Projectile vomiting incident."_

Alex felt her stomach drop.

"The what?"

"And all that trouble with Gene and the clams."

Alex swallowed.

"I… presume the alleged clams have something to do with the projectile vomiting incident?" she asked nervously.

Kim sighed.

"You would think so…"

Alex audibly gulped this time.

"I don't think I want to know about this," she said awkwardly.

"Oh, no, no," Kim realised she was probably scaremongering, "there were some good parts…" she dropped her voice slightly, "_some_ good parts… not that many…"

Alex scowled.

"Kim…"

"I mean, if you discount Simon's attempt at buying decent Christmas presents…"

"_Kim…"_

"…and the… whole… _queen's speech drinking game_ thing…"

"KIM!"

"…then there were some parts that you'll enjoy,."

"I think we should stop talking about this now…"

"And Simon forgives Gene eventually…"

Alex's eyes opened wide.

"Why? What does he do?"

Kim bit her lip and glanced around.

"I've probably said too much…" she realised.

Alex gave a slight sigh, aghast.

"You_ think_ so?" she cried.

Robin looked at Kim nervously.

"Does Simon cope OK?" he asked.

Kim looked around for a second. The look on his face almost broke her heart.

"We all looked after him," she whispered, "well… _Gene_ didn't, but…"

Alex thrust her hands into her hair.

"Oh, for pity's sake, Kim, what does Gene do?"

"To be fair, after Simon made Gene do that whole… stupid _cookery_ thing…"

Alex slapped her head.

"I take it this is where those clams come in, yes?"

"Uh…"

Alex sighed.

"On second thoughts," Alex sighed, "maybe we should just leave this subject well enough alone."

Kim looked a little sheepish

"Sorry, Alex," she said quietly.

As silence descended again, Robin turned his attention to his foot. There was a small hole forming in the end of his sock, which – incidentally – he'd been wearing for three days straight.

"My poor shoe," he sighed.

Alex glanced behind her.

"Well, at least you've not been wearing red slippers since Wednesday," she said with a half-smile.

"You sound like you've stepped right out the Wizard of Oz," Robin commented.

"Think yourself lucky Gene isn't here," said Alex he'd be first off the mark with the _'friend of Dorothy'_ jokes."

"Well your hair looked a bit like a scarecrow when you fell out of bed this morning," Robin teased.

"Don't be so bloody cheeky!" Alex tried not to smile but inside her relief at Robin lightening the tone was strong. She knew the journey back to Kim's was a brief interlude from the darkness. "Alright then, so if I'm the scarecrow who are you?"

Robin hesitated. He'd extended his knowledge of The Wizard of Oz as far as it went with the ruby slippers and the scarecrow.

"Who is there left again?"

"A tin man and a cowardly lion."

Robin thought about it for a moment.

"which one's better at cooking?"

"The tin man has a funnel on his head," Alex told him.

Robin nodded.

"I'll be him then," he said.

The rest of the journey passed quickly and quietly and they arrived back at Kim's with their loot from Keats's flat, then shuffled through the front door and into the lounge where they dropped their papers and files on the floor. Kim stepped back a little and ran her fingers through her hair.

"Listen," she said quietly, "I've got to go and get ready for work. Will you be OK?"

"Of course," Alex smiled a little awkwardly. She began to feel guilty about invading Kim's life once again.

For the next half an hour they made coffee, shuffled papers, skirted around the issue a little nervously. Both were acutely aware how much importance lay in those files but neither quite felt ready to tackle them yet. When Kim appeared, ready for work, they both knew the moment couldn't be postponed for much longer.

"Listen," she said quietly, "keep the curtains drawn. Keep the doors locked. Don't answer the phone or go to the door. There's enough food in the kitchen for lunch and Alex, make sure you wash and moisturise your tattoo again this afternoon."

"You're sounding like my mother again," Alex said with a little smile.

Kim swallowed. Tears came surprisingly to her eyes and she tried to bite them back.

"I'll be home at six," she whispered, "but, in case… for whatever reason… the two of you aren't here when I get back…" she found her voice failing now and the tears attempting to make a break for it and roll down her cheek. She closed her eyelids tightly shut and decided to show instead of say what she meant, enveloping Alex in a hug which held so much warmth and friendship that Alex felt uplifted and loved. She might have been a long way from home but she still had friendship on her side. That, she knew, was the thing that would get her through.

"Thank you, Kim," she breathed.

As Kim finally let go of Alex and drew away she looked at Robin and gave him a strained smile.

"And as for you," she began.

"Uh oh, that doesn't sound good," Robin commented.

Kim took a deep breath.

"I used to think of Simon like a big brother" she said, "now… now I think I've gained a little brother too."

Robin smiled back. Her words were warm and comforting.

"Thanks," he whispered.

Kim hesitated for a moment. One last glimpse of them both. One last look at the strange and wonderful pair, then she turned and left before the tears became impossible to fight.

Robin and Alex stared at each other for a moment. They knew the time had come and there could be no turning back now. The files sat in the idle of the floor, ready and waiting to be read and absorbed. Ready and waiting to share the secrets they held within.

With a deep breath, Alex glanced towards them and gave a sombre nod.

"It's time," she whispered.

Slowly, nervously, they walked towards the pile and began to examine every single sheet of paper with a fine tooth comb. Whatever secrets lay within were about to be unequivocally released, and they both hoped and prayed they would lead unlocking the door to 1995. Whatever connected Layton to Keats was about to be thrown open. The truth would be as clear and obvious as the scar on her head, but whether they were ready to find out or not was another matter entirely.

~xXx~

Evan sat at the kitchen table as the sky changed from black to blue. The small kitchen television still played away, but the news never changed. How many hours of sleep had be garnered in the last forty-eight? Three? Four? He could already hear Molly's footsteps shuffling down the staircase and knew that her own night's sleep wouldn't have been on the good side either. He rubbed his eyes and stood up with a sigh as he watched her enter the kitchen.

"Morning, Scrap," he said, a thin, strained smile upon his face.

"Have they found her?"

It was the first thing Molly asked. The only thing she _ever _asked now. He hung his head.

"No, Molly," he said quietly, "not yet." He turned around and pretended to busy himself making breakfast. He couldn't even meet her eyes now. Although the reason behind Alex's disappearance was still somewhat unconfirmed he had a dark sense of foreboding that something connected to his past was at least in part behind it. Was there some way she'd found out about his instrumental part in her shooting? Or her parents' death? How could she have known? And yet those feelings of guilt wouldn't go away.

"What do you want for breakfast?" he asked half-heartedly but as he turned around he saw that Molly had already gone. There were footsteps, a slamming of her bedroom door and a few moments later loud music blaring out to block out her tears. He flinched and closed his eyes. How much more could one girl take?

The sound of the phone ringing disturbed his thoughts and he snatched up the receiver.

"Hello?" he said anxiously, hoping for news, but the line was quiet, _"Hello?"_ there was a click, and then a voice.

"_I've been watching the news."_

Evan felt his heart jump a little.

"Who's there?" he asked, "do you have any information?"

There was a pause on the line.

"_I've got information, alright." _

Evan froze. That voice was familiar. He hadn't recognised it at first but his memory began to spark now.

"Who _is_ this?" he whispered.

"_I thought you'd have remembered me,"_ the voice said darkly, _"especially after what happened the last time you ignored me."_

Evan closed his eyes. A lump rose into his throat that he just couldn't swallow away.

"Layton," he hissed.

"_So, she's awake is she?"_ Layton's sneer was mocking and spiteful, _"and walking. Or wandering off, so I hear."_

Evan clenched his jaw.

"Get off my fucking phone," he hissed.

"_You sure you want me to do that?"_ asked Layton, _"only, the last time you didn't want to listen to me someone close to you ended up with a bullet in their head."_

Evan swallowed.

"What do you want?"

"_What you still owe me,"_ Layton hissed, "_With interest. The recession's still biting, you know."_

"You have nothing to bribe me with," Evan tried to sound defiant but his voice wobbled like a coward's, "Alex is missing. If _I_ don't know where she is then you'll never find her."

"_I don't have to,"_ Layton hold him, _"national news seems pretty interested in the story. I'm sure they'd like to hear a bit of family background."_

Evan felt his breath escape in a gasp.

"You wouldn't."

"_Do you want to risk calling my bluff?"_ Layton asked,_ "like last time?"_

Evan swallowed as his legs went from under him and he stumbled to the floor. Phone held shakily to his ear, he whispered.

"I don't have the kind of money you're asking for."

"_Then you've got until the end of tomorrow to find it,"_ Layton told him, _"I'll be in touch with instructions. Until then, you'd better hope the police find Alex before I do."_

"You wouldn't dare," Evan whispered, "you'd have to come out of hiding – you'd never take that risk."

"_You're still trying to call my bluff?"_ Layton gave a bitter laugh, _"that worked out well for you last time, didn't it, Evan? You were so pleased with your decision." _There was a pause and a laugh. _"I'm happy, hope you're happy too…"_

"_Fuck off!"_ Evan cried. He ended the call and threw the phone across the floor where it skipped and skidded like a stone on a pond. He laid his head in his hands and began to give a jagged, tearless sob. His body was wracked with nerves and his mind wracked with gilt. He didn't have the funds Layton needed, and he didn't know where to find them. The news reports of Evan as the silver-tinged hero who had taken in Alex as a child and done the same for her own daughter during her coma was about to become tarnished and the television screen would be showing a very different side to the Alex story

"…_And the headlines again this morning, Police are asking tattooists in the London area to come forward with any information they have about missing Police Inspector Robin Thomas who yesterday showed a display of reduced mental capacity, attempting to have the dogs in his canine unit tattooed…"_

The TV played away in the background as Evan breathed raggedly, in and out. His head felt as though it might explode with anxiety and pressure as he tried to work out where to go or what to do. He couldn't think straight, couldn't even begin to make some semblance of sense out of his thoughts.

"…_. A search of a flat previously owned by Mr Thomas's deceased partner revealed evidence that both he and the missing Detective Inspector, Alex Drake, had been staying at the property."_

Evan's feelings of guilt increased as footage of Molly, shot the previous evening, played on the screen.

"_Mum, please call us," _her tearful voice played out, "_you're not in any trouble… we just want you home…"_

He got to his feet slowly and tried to pull his head together. He had to find something – some way – to resolve the situation without losing Alex and Molly, whatever it took. He'd kept the secret this long – there had to be a way. He strode toward the TV set.

"…_That was Molly Drake, the daughter of missing Detective Inspector Alex Drake, talking last night," _the newsreader said sombrely, "_And in other news, this morning police have announced a major breakthrough in the war against the city's leading drug barons after an arrest that occurred when an ambulance was called to –"_

He flicked the television off and closed his eyes. The air in the room felt heavy and laden. Or was that just his conscience? Either way, he felt as though his world was crumbling with him trapped right in the centre.


	53. Chapter 26, 1995: Feroce

**Chapter Twenty Six: 1995**

Keats listened to the radio as he drove along the dark, winter roads on his way to collect Alex. He'd been listening to the same station since they promised a big Christmas hit was coming up in a few minutes and he was clinging on to the hope that _Last Christmas_ would soon come blaring from the speakers.

The thought of collecting Alex was sending a thrill around his body. He thought idly about her new haircut – well, her _old_ haircut, and the familiar look that he had started to help her to create. A smug smile graced his lips as he leaned back and cruised down the road. It was going to be another great day. He listened to the song finish on the radio and a DJ promise a wonderful Christmas hit coming up next. Of course it had to be _Last Christmas._ How could anything else fit the bill?

"…_and that was Mike Flowers Pops!" _the DJ told him,_ "now, coming up next we have a hot Christmas hit from yesteryear, and don't forget to call in when you hear the next Alison Moyet track for our big giveaway! But first, it's time to get festive…" _

He waited for those familiar notes to hit his ears, but to his horror _Jingle Bell Rock_ played instead. He gave a sudden cry of frustration and shut off the radio in disgust. How could any radio station play a Christmas song that was _not_ performed by _Wham?_ It seemed ridiculous.

No matter – he had more important things to think about, namely Alex. He smiled again as he pictured her from the day before; her body right there for the taking, her mind wrapped up in his spell and her need for him written on every inch of her face. For just a second he felt his eyes close as he recalled the moment, but almost immediately the picture in his mind faded and a different image lay across it of Alex in another time, another room, a little younger and a little slimmer, the heat rising from the walls and her head in a daze.

The image shook him for a moment. It came from nowhere and shocked him so deeply that he had to wrestle with the steering wheel to keep control of his car. He was surprised by how fast his heart was racing and it took several deep breaths to calm himself down.

_Focus, Jim, focus. Alex is a beautiful woman. Yesterday was heaven. Today, maybe you'll get an encore._

But in the next heartbeat, the voice in his head said;

'_**But that's not the Alex you want!' **_

A tree loomed large as his course deviated from the road and he swerved to avoid it. With a cross sigh and a gasp he stamped on the brakes and pulled up at the side of the road, breathing heavily. He couldn't shake that thought. He closed his eyes for a moment and leaned forward slightly, gripping the steering wheel to keep him grounded. He breathed deeply and waited until his heart rate began to drop to an acceptable level once again and finally felt he had regained enough composure to drive away.

He restarted the car and pulled back onto the road. Keeping his mind on driving this time he focused on the little things;_ the car ahead, the next turning, the tree by the side of the road._ Anything except Alex and her beautiful face, her body, her allure, her captivating eyes and the gentle sound of her voice as her soothing tone travelled through the air...

This wasn't helping. He was thinking about her again. He reached out to switch the radio back on - maybe that would distract him. That god-awful festive tripe had to be finished by now. As he turned it on the DJ was in the middle of a long spiel about the upcoming show.

"…_and after the news we're into the last hour of the breakfast show with our daily cereal guessing game" he hooted, "But first of all… could this be the track you've been listening out for?"_

The radio went to a cheesy ident followed by the open bars of a song Keats didn't really know. However, as soon as the vocals began he realised it was most likely the Alison Moyet track he'd been warned to listen out for. He considered calling up for all of two seconds before he realised three things – 1) he didn't know the phone number, 2) he didn't have a phone and 3) he didn't actually like Alison Moyet. He sighed as the song continued and let the words wash over him as he drove.

_# …When she said that you were through_

_I thought that there was nothing that I could do_

_Just because she ran right here_

_Doesn't mean I interfered_

_Now I'm wondering if we can feel the same… #_

He began to think about Alex again. He thought about the day before, that glorious afternoon in the basement, the fire and the heat. He almost closed his eyes as he thought about it, a strong yearning for a repeat performance building up inside of him. He could see her there still, laying there before him, needing him so badly.

'_**The gas and air was a step too far.'**_

An angry voice in his head broke through the thoughts and images that surrounded him. He gave a sharp intake of breath, unsure where those words had come from, and tried to fight them away. He hated the way this voice had interrupted his pleasurable, fiery thoughts. It had no business being there. He accelerated slightly, as though he could outrun it while the chorus of the song played through the car.

_# …Cause she keeps whispering your name_

_She keeps on whispering your name_

_Like she's just waiting… #_

"She was _hot_ for me!" he declared triumphantly, laughing a little at his own pun, but an angry voice stirred inside his head again.

'_**Why did you drug her then?'**_

This time it caused him to feel suddenly nauseous and anxious; a lump seemed to form in his throat that wouldn't go anywhere. He swallowed and gulped but it sat there inside him, growing bigger and heavier with every passing moment. He saw her again in his mind's eye. Saw her draped over the desk, her eyes closed, her head lolling.

Then he saw her the night before that, looking at him through the red wine and the flowers. _That_ was the look in her eye. _That _one, right there. That was the one he'd wanted to see. She was his – she'd already fallen for him, so why… why had he…

He shook his head angrily and gripped the steering wheel a little tighter. Time to wipe that thought from his mind. _Concentrate. Move. Go forward._

_# …She once told me how she felt_

_Didn't just want me to hear it from someone else_

_There were unknowns she couldn't know_

_But she hoped you two would grow_

_And when you didn't she was brought to me in pain… #_

But there is was again, the image of her laying back, her head swimming, her mind numb and out of place. There was no look of love in those eyes. No look of _lust_ even. There was nothing; just a dizzy, intoxicated haze that she might not even recall in the cold light of day.

As quick as a flash that image was replaced by her as she _was_ again; the younger Alex, the Alex he'd known so long ago. And in those early days he'd tried… he could have stood a chance… there was a connection between them, and if he'd only…

He growled and gripped the wheel so tightly his knuckles turned as white as the flakes of snow that had started to fall around him outside. He couldn't understand it. He couldn't understand why that image was haunting him. That Alex was from a long time ago.

_Concentrate on the present, Jim. On Alex. This Alex. YOUR Alex. She wants you. And she needs you._

'_**Just like you wanted 'HER' to.'**_

There was that voice again. It burst through his thoughts with the image of the Alex he knew in 1983. For years he'd tried to push back the memories of her. For so long he'd tried to keep them at bay; tried to forget and bury how he'd felt.

How he'd felt, when he could feel.

How he'd felt, _before._

"…Before what?" he whispered out loud. He didn't even know. There were things on the edge of his memory, elements of the past and a truth that wouldn't quite come forth. His heart was racing and his palms grew sweaty as they clung to the wheel.

_# …And she keeps whispering your name_

_She keeps on whispering your name_

_Like she's just waiting… #_

Something had unleashed a memory within him now though. As hard as he fought there were little moments and snippets coming back to him. He recalled the first time he'd ever seen her. He'd read about her in so many files, learned all about her, but he had no idea how beautiful she was. Not until he went to visit her in the hospital after Hunt's bullet sent her out cold.

"It's not fair…"

He could hear his own words echoing through his head as he recalled the stillness, the peace on her face as she lay there.

"You're the best of them, Alex…"

And she was. By far the best. She was _still_ the best of them. The best in every way.

_# …If it's just a little fling a simple thing_

_I'll try not to pretend_

_If it's just for jealousy she's using me_

_That might be hard to mend… #_

He thought about the Alex he'd picked up from the floor outside of Fenchurch East just two days earlier. That was not the Alex he knew from back then. This was a strange, a sarcastic, a weak and a slightly mentally unhinged Alex. This was a woman who truly thought she was stuck in her own mind, This wasn't the woman who had grown to live and breathe the world. _This_ world. Gene's world.

He spat as he thought about it. Hunt's fucking world? _Ha!_ He had an over-inflated sense of self-importance.

"It's not your world any more, Hunt," he hissed, "and she's not _your_ Alex any more!"

'_**No, she's not… and she's not the Alex you want, either.'**_

Keats screamed aloud as the voice interrupted his thoughts once again. Why the hell wouldn't it go away?

"_Fuck off!"_ he cried.

He tried to focus. _Look at what you've got. Concentrate on what's solid. Look at yesterday… see what you took for yourself? Alex. She's all yours. Laying there, gasping, panting, begging…_

But she _wasn't,_ _was _she? She wasn't begging. She could hardly move. Hardly understand. Hardly knew what was happening. Was that it? Was that what he really wanted?

Was that even _who_ he wanted?

The hair. The make-up, even the clothes. He'd dressed her up as a mannequin of her former self, but inside that head… inside that mind, it was not the Alex that his heart pounded in his chest for, way back then.

_Whoompf _– the image was there in his mind again. Alex, 1983 – as she was when they first met. He recalled her down in the basement. He could see her there, smiling… she was smiling, wasn't she?

_Wasn't_ she?

But she did want to be there, right?

There was a glass, and some drink, and of course the air was heavy and laden -

_# …Oh what else can I do_

_But try to give her more than she got from you… #_

His eyes closed for a split second as he pictured her in 1983, up against the wall, his need for her so strong. He took it, took what he wanted. He had her; had her right there and then, just the way he wanted, just the way he needed. And she wanted him too. She did. She wanted him. Didn't she?

She… _did…_ want him, didn't she?

_# …And when she wakes up suddenly _

_and she says you name to me_

_I'll just hope its force of habit _

_and not need… #_

'_**Whose name did she say, Jim?'**_

The voice sounded spiteful now. Angry. _Bitter._

'_**Whose name DID she say?'**_

He tried to block it out. He didn't want to think about it any more. The memories that had surfaced should have been left where they were. They were intact and perfect, snippets of his life that couldn't be touched or tainted. Moments where he took what he wanted and got it all his own way.

Like Alex. Beautiful, perfect Alex.

Her beautiful face, her perfect figure, her body pressed up against him and the breathy tone of her voice as she gasped; as she surrendered. As she whispered his name –

As she whispered – _whose_ name?

_"- Gene…"_

_# …Cause she keeps whispering your name_

_She keeps on whispering your name_

_Like she's just waiting… #_

"_No!"_ he screamed, _"fuck!"_

In his anger his hands rose in the air and thumped down hard on the steering wheel. He lost control instantly and careered into the grass verge at the side of the back road.

"_FUCK!"_

Up on the verge, he hit a tree, putting a fetching dent in the front of his car and giving his airbag a bit of an outing. He continued to swear as he tried to fight his way out from behind it but the radio was not so hampered and continued to the end of the song; every last torturous word reminding him. Reminding him of _her._ Reminding him of the only other woman he'd ever –

- He didn't even allow himself to complete that thought, screaming loudly to drown out his own mental processes.

There was no room for this.

No room in his life.

But the song would not be silenced as easily as his mind.

_# …Oh tell me what is fair_

_When nothing's wrong_

_And she just stares_

_Like she's just waiting… #_

Finally he scrambled out of the car. He kicked the door, broke a toe, yowled in agony and hopped like a lunatic for several minutes until he realised that he needed to calm the hell down and work out a way to get out of this damn side road and collect Alex. That was, after all, the way to obliterate those thoughts. Those memories. _Create new ones. Cover them up with a new picture,_ a new image to keep in his mind.

"Because," he whispered through the pain and through the mental anguish, "that's what I do best. Cover it up, Wipe it clean. Start again."

As he limped towards the main road to hitch a lift his mind was already blocking out the last few minutes, just as it had with so very many 'moments' before. It was the only way to function. It was the only way to keep going with a back catalogue of horrific actions and darkness that he had amassed.

By the time he reached the main road, the only reminder of the song and thecrash was a the pain in his toe.

And physical pain was never a problem.

~xXx~

The sound of the beeping horn woke Alex was she lay draped over the kitchen table. Surrounded by paper, the room was littered with notes such as _"Layton – shot me 2008; where is Layton in 1995?", "Jim = representing my self-image?"_ and _"Heat + Keats = manifestation of sexual frustration?". _Underneath the mass of notes made from a selection of coloured markers was an empty pizza box and a crushed coke can, along with two crusts and a half-finished dip. Her stomach felt bloated and heavy and she could smell the garlic oozing from her pores after the free garlic bread she'd received with her pizza found its way down her neck.

She looked out of the window in alarm and saw a taxi waiting at the far end of the path. Keats was standing beside it, his face darker than she had seen it before. A wave of panic shot through her body.

"_Shit!"_ she hissed. The fastest clean-up operation in history was about to occur. She gathered up the papers quickly into a stack, then put them in the empty pizza box which she closed quickly and hurried into the lounge. She looked around for a suitable hiding place. Getting to her knees, she slipped it under the couch, checked to make sure it was hidden and climbed back to her feet again. She ran back to the kitchen and threw the coke can in the rubbish bin.

"Forgive me, Mother Nature," she whispered, "I'll recycle twice as hard when I get home."

A glance out of the window saw Keats walking slowly and a little awkwardly towards the house. She glanced at her distorted reflection in the glass of the clock face, and despite the distortion could tell she looked a state. She raced to the bathroom, closed the door and prepared for the world's _second_ biggest clean-up operation – _herself._ A fast and urgent teeth-brushing and heavy-duty mouth-wash moment followed. She could still smell the garlic.

"The bloody garlic bread!" she cursed, "_why_ did I have to eat the garlic bread!"

With no time to wash or shower she doused herself liberally in body spray just as she heard the sound of the back door opening.

"Shit! _Shit!"_ she mumbled, as she stared at herself in the mirror. The clip was still there in her hair, her quiff flopping and crushed to one side. She pulled it out and began to run a brush through her new haircut as fast as she could.

"_Alex?"_

Alex flinched. Somehow she didn't feel like she wanted to hear that voice.

"I'm just in the bathroom, Jim," she called out a little nervously, "I'll be right there."

She smoothed down her top a little and struggled to pull up the open zip on her skirt. Letting it all hang free seemed like good idea after consuming a large pizza the night before. Trying to get it all back in again wasn't looking quite so appealing the following morning.

"Oh, come _on," _she growled, yanking it up crossly. The material dug into her flesh and didn't sit well following her gluttony of the night before. Was she working her way through the seven sins, she wondered?

A last glance in the mirror – she would have to do. Fixing a smile upon her face, she left the bathroom. _Just keep smiling, Alex,_ she told herself, _whatever else happens, keep that smile firmly fixed upon your face. _

"Jim," she whispered.

Keats stood in the kitchen, leaning heavily to one side with his opposite foot raised slightly in the air.

"You weren't ready," he said. There was a smile on his face but it wasn't warm or friendly. It was ironic. Frustrated. About to give way at any moment. "You know I like people to be punctual."

"I'm sorry, Jim," Alex tried to keep her expression the same, "I was so tired after yesterday, I overslept."

Keats ran his fingers across the bare wooden table until they reached a fallen piece of peperoni. He lifted it slowly between his fingers and stared at it, then shifted his gaze to Alex. He watched her squirm as his eyes fell upon her. Her smile was still there but it was wavering now.

"I don't remember leaving you a pizza, Alex," he said quietly.

Alex felt a terrible sense of dread and guilt fall upon her shoulders. Her tongue ran nervously around her lips as she looked at him.

"I'd hardly eaten all day," she said quietly, trying to keep her voice steady, "I was feeling unwell and faint. I needed something more substantial."

Keats began to move slowly toward her. She glanced again at his foot as he moved awkwardly and she couldn't help wondering what was the matter with it.

"I thought we agreed yesterday that you needed to make the best of yourself," he said quietly.

Alex felt herself gulp so hard that she could even hear it, like a comedy sound effect in a cartoon. Her thoughts had branched in so many directions as she brainstormed through the night, but most of them led her far away from the magnificent thoughts she'd had of Jim as a knight in shining armour.

"Yes," she said quietly, "and I know, my body isn't –"

"Only you can change it, Alex," he rested a hand on her shoulder, "I can help you and guide you but only you can put in the hard work. Am I wasting my time with you? Am I wasting my trust and my energy?"

Alex felt her eyes turning downward. She felt as though she'd been sent to the headmasters' office.

"No, Jim," she whispered, "of course not. I'm sorry… I'm sorry, it won't happen again."

"I only want to help you," Keats told her. His tone was a little softer now, but the disappointment still shone in his eyes. "I want to help you get back to your peak. And we're making big steps, but you've got to work with me."

Alex bit her lip.

"Of course," she whispered, "I'm sorry." She paused. "I didn't even enjoy it. Not really," she lied. She'd savoured every last damn mouthful and practically orgasmed over the sensation of the melted cheese as it hit her tongue on the first bite.

"That's because you know it's no good for you," Keats told her, "now, come on – we have a full day ahead today. You managed a disappointingly limited amount of work yesterday. You have much to make up for today."

Alex hung her head again.

"Yes, Jim," she whispered.

As she followed him out of the door she thought about his words. Yes - she _had _realised _something_ was no good for her, but it wasn't the pizza. She walked in silence and gave a half-hearted smile as he opened the door for her to let her in the taxi.

_Keep smiling, Alex. Just keep on smiling. You can crumble as hard as you need to inside but just keep that smile right where it sits._

"Fenchurch West Police Station," Keats told the driver as he joined her in the back.

Alex bit her lip nervously as the driver pulled out of the driveway.

"Why did you get a taxi?" she asked.

Keats looked a little uncomfortable.

"Car trouble," he said quietly.

The driver reached out and switched on his radio.

"How about some music for your journey?" he asked.

_# …Cause she keeps whispering your name_

_She keeps on whispering your name_

_Like she's just waiting… #_

"For fuck's sake, change the fucking station!" Keats cried, reaching between the front seats to jab at the driver's radio.

"Oi! _My car, my radio!"_ the driver told him crossly.

"_My_ money, _my_ tip," hissed Keats, "change the fucking radio station!"

"_Alright, alright!_ Keep your specs on!" the driver cried. He reached out and changed the station. "Jesus, you really must hate Alison Moyet!"

That was the last thing said on the journey. The driver drove, Keats scowled, and Alex… she just kept on smiling. That was all she could do. Once she was alone in her office the mask would slip and she could begin to seek some answers. What happened the day before changed her view of the man she'd thought she wanted. Thought she was drawn to. Thought she felt so safe with. Today would see her finding out whether her initial impressions were right – or whether the power of a rotten spell was beginning to slip away.

~xXx~

Gene sighed as he opened the drawer and reached in to pull out a petty cash tin. He sat the tin on his desk, pulled his keyring from his pocket and found the right key to open the lock. He felt strangely sick as he lifted the lid. He hadn't even touched that tin in years.

On the top layer of the box were a few coins. Most of them weren't legal tender anymore. Many of them hadn't been for years. He slipped the top tray out and pulled a key from underneath. Swallowing at the sight of it, he looked up at Simon and held it out.

"Here," he said grimly, "The key to Jimbo's lair."

Simon stared at the metal object in Gene's hand. It seemed strange to think one small item could hold so much promise and yet so much fear.

"Thank you," he said quietly. He reached out to take it and a strange energy seemed to grow as the key changed hands. It was like a buzz; a spark, a flash of power. Neither could explain it but they both acknowledged it.

Gene looked at him seriously.

"Anything weird, you leave that room. Feel strange, you leave that room. Any sign of Jimbo, you leave that room." He paused. "And take that bloody jumper off. You'll boil alive."

Simon smiled a little nervously.

"Yes, Gene," he said quietly.

Gene nodded towards to door.

"Good luck, Shoebury," he said.

Simon nodded again and turned on the spot. The door opened behind him and he left feeling nervous but the anticipation and promise overrode it. Whatever the truth was about Keats and the origin of the evil that took him over, Simon was sure it had to be down there. It had to be buried in that room. It had lain dormant for so long – _too_ long. With the truth set free maybe they could find a way to bring back whoever he used to be and chase the demons away. That, he felt sure, was the best chance they had of getting through him to Alex and helping her home.

"And if we discover the man in the process," he said quietly, "then all the better. Because we've seen enough of the monster to last us a lifetime."

_**~xXx~**_

_**Author's Note: And so the song of the title actually appears! Just to be totally pathetically self-indulgent for a moment, I named this story after that song because it reminded me of summer 1997, I'd been trying to get hold of that song for a couple of years and one lucky day I found it for mere pence in a bargain bin! That summer I listened to it on repeat, night after night, while I wrote compulsively, eating toast and drinking red wine. It was the best summer of my life – and because I finally had back that same love for writing I had back then, that's why I chose this song for the title :-)**_

_**Plus, it fits with the story! :D**_

_**And also, never say I'm not dedicated – today I went to London to retrace Layton's footsteps in the name of research! And I have now driven everyone within a 10 mile radius mad by singing "…I'm happy, hope you're happy too…" all night!**_


	54. Chapter 27, 2011: Cambiare

**Chapter Twenty Seven: 2011**

"It's a bribe list."

With those words the truth dawned on Alex. She looked up at Robin who was wide-eyed.

"It's what?"

They'd been poring over the papers and files for the last few hours and it had taken some time to piece everything together. The television played away in the background, the volume down but the vision on, just to keep an eye on the situation and to make sure their location was still secret. It seemed Alex wasn't the top story any more anyway. Repeated pictures of some red-haired woman interspersed with images of packets of narcotics and an ambulance were flashing up over and over. An occasional interruption by _beard model_ Evan White caused some gagging from them both, but by and large it seemed the news had decided to leave them be.

"This list," Alex moved across to Robin, "these officers. There are numbers beside them. They're dates." She placed two sheets of paper side by side. "Here's Layton's bank account, and here's Keats's. Look, the date written beside each of these names, within a few days an amount goes into Layton's bank account. Then he transfers half to Keats."

"What?" Robin frowned. He studied the papers. "Are you sure?"

"I've been checking date after date," Alex said, "it follows a pattern."

"What the hell's going on?" Robin couldn't wrap his head around it.

"Maybe this will help," Alex moved another sheet to the top of the pile, "check this list – it's the same as the first sheet but beside it there are phone numbers, addresses, email addresses, all in Keats's handwriting."

"Keats was getting the contact details of police officers," Robin whispered as some of Alex's words began to slip into place.

"Not just officers either" Alex said quietly, "we know Evan's on this list. Perhaps there are other members of the legal profession here."

"What were they being bribed about?" Robin shook his head slowly.

"Whatever Layton had on them," Alex sighed deeply, "look at his bank account, Robin – the man was a desperate mess. An amount would go in, half would disappear in Keats's pocket and then the rest would go to this other account."

Robin scanned the transactions.

"Always the same account," he said quietly, "do we know whose?"

"No ideas," Alex said quietly.

Robin chewed on his lip.

"What's the connection with Keats?" he wondered, "why was he helping Layton? Did it have anything to do with you being shot?"

"I don't see how," Alex sighed, "in fact, the transactions _stop_ with me being shot. He must have had to go into hiding."

"Keats didn't even know who you were at that point," Robin told her, "he had no memory of your name when he woke from his coma. He didn't find out who you were – or where you were – until he found out where Simon was and traced him reading your file. That led him to find you again."

"Then it has to be coincidence," Alex shuddered, "a weird, sick coincidence, but a coincidence none the less."

"But why Keats?"

Alex shook her head slowly.

"If Layton was looking for a bent cop then he's not going to find one more corrupt than Keats," she pointed out.

Robin nodded.

"You've got that much right," he said quietly.

"I just wish I understood why Evan was on this list," Alex said quietly, "and I found a third list of names tucked away here too. But this one doesn't have any input from Keats." She gave a hefty sigh. "Looks like this is his bribe list from the other side of the law.

"What do you mean?"

"I recognise some of these names," said Alex as she handed the sheet to Robin, "they're on the other side of the cells now. He's bribed everyone – police officers, lawyers, even his own kind."

"So much for honour amongst thieves," muttered Robin. He froze suddenly and took in a sharp breath. _"Fuck!"_

"What? What is it?" Alex asked.

"Nailer," Robin's voice was almost inaudible, "Look."

He turned the sheet back to Alex and indicated a name. She wasn't sure how she missed it the first time. But then there _were_ an awful lot of names.

"Nailer," she repeated. Some of the gaps of her memory were clearing about the nature of Gene's world and she remembered a little more about their dealings with him from 1995, "you… and Simon… you came to us because of Nailer," she whispered, "didn't you."

Robin nodded sombrely.

"Yes," he whispered.

Alex tried to recall more details.

"You helped us to catch him," she said quietly.

"That's right,"

"And Simon pulled his trousers down."

"That was an accident," Robin pointed out."

"…and sat on him."

Robin sighed.

"So Simon wasn't having one of his better days…" he said.

Alex sighed and rubbed his forehead.

"What would Layton have on Nailer?" she whispered. She was about to start theorising but a hollow growl came from her stomach, replacing her words with an embarrassed sigh. "Oh _no,"_ she said, "All you've heard since I arrived on your doorstep is my stomach protesting about something."

Robin glanced at the clock.

"It's gone eleven," he said quietly, "it's been hours since breakfast."

"And none of us even managed to eat that," Alex said quietly.

Robin nodded. It was true. The thought of paying a visit to Keats had killed their appetite.

"Kim said there was food in the kitchen," he pointed out, "I'll see what I can find."

Alex looked at him gratefully.

"Thanks, Robin," she said quietly.

Robin got to his feet and walked to the door, staggering slightly around the doorway. His feet didn't seem to want to go in the right direction and his head felt so heavy. How much sleep had he managed to get the night before? It wasn't much, he knew that.

Alex lifted another sheet of paper as Robin disappeared in search of food. She sighed as she tried to work out what on earth Evan could have done. She certainly didn't like the man, _or_ his beard, but for someone like Layton to have something on him there seemed to be more to him than met the eye.

The sound of a few cupboards opening and closing came from the kitchen, followed by Robin's voice calling out,

"_Sorry, Alex, she's only got cabbage soup!"_

Alex glanced up.

"If that's a joke," she began, "then I'm going to kill you. If it's _not_ a joke then I'm going to kill myself."

She heard Robin laugh.

"_Don't worry, I'm still looking, he called, "I'll save you from cabbage soup."_

Alex gave a little smile and then turned back to the papers. It felt as though they had half the story perfectly now, but the other half was lost in the mist. Until she found out the connection between Layton and Evan then she would still be a mile away from the truth.

~xXx~

Robin sighed as he opened yet another cupboard.

"Cooking not one of your favourite hobbies, Kim?" he mumbled to himself. There was a startling lack of food around and he wasn't sure what Kim had in mind when she told them there was plenty of food in the kitchen. "_Looks like it might have to be sandwiches,"_ he called out.

"_That's fine,"_ Alex called back.

With a sigh he opened the breadbin and took out a half-finished loaf, then found the butter in the fridge. He felt a little unsteady as he got to his feet, stood the butter on the counter and began to look for ingredients. There wasn't a lot in the fridge but he remembered seeing some tins of tuna in one of the cupboards. Thinking of making some tuna mayonnaise, he went on the search for them and reached up to get them from the high shelf when suddenly the room began to spin. His body felt numb all over, his skin tingling from head to toe.

He felt his eyes close and a blackness overcome him as his legs gave way below him and sent him tumbling to the ground where he lay still and silent; his body motionless and his mind a million miles away.

~xXx~

Evan stared at the phone as it rang. The choice between answering it or leaving it alone was a tough decision to make. There was a strong chance there would be a voice on the line that he really didn't want to hear from. But there was also the chance that it was news about Alex. He wished someone could make the decision for him, as stupid as that sounded. He wanted someone else to answer the call and take over his life. He was in the biggest mess he'd ever faced. Bigger than the whole mess with the automatic beard trimming device.

Eventually his concern for Alex outweighed his fear that Layton might be on the line and he snatched it up.

"Hello?" he said anxiously.

"Evan, I'm sorry," the voice of his employer came through on the line, "I know this isn't what you want to hear right now but you're needed down at Fenchurch East police station."

His heart sank.

"Is it Alex?" he whispered, "have they found her?"

"No, it's business."

"Business?" Evan gave an angry laugh, "My goddaughter is missing, anything could have happened to her! She's away somewhere with that deranged Thomas man, and Molly's in pieces. I can't leave her."

"This is important," the voice told him, "a high profile case. Just the thing we need in this climate."

"It's not as important as Alex. She's the closest thing I have to family."

"He asked for you by name."

Evan hesitated. A frown crept over his face.

"Who is it?"

There was a pause on the line.

"Have you been watching the news, Evan?"

"I've been watching nothing _but_ the news."

"I mean the parts without Alex and your beard."

Evan frowned again.

"Not really. Why?"

"Police made a big arrest today. Nicholas Nailer, a dealer who's evaded them for the best part of two decades. He's asked for representation and he's asked for you."

Evan couldn't quite make sense of this.

"Why did he ask for me?"

"If you get down there maybe you can find out."

Evan closed his eyes and groaned. He shook his head slowly.

"I have to be here with Mols," he said.

There was a sigh on the line.

"Evan, we've been more than understanding of your situation. We allowed you a sabbatical when Alex was shot. We gave you time off after she woke up. We've allowed you to rearrange your workload to help you take care of her. But you have to give us something back. Now, you haven't taken on any new clients since she came round from her coma and this is a high-profile case. Do well here and there are prospects for promotion."

Evan hesitated.

"Promotion, you say?"

"There is an opening for a partner," the voice told him, "within the next year Graham's retiring and we'll be looking for someone to fill his shoes. Your name has come up in discussion. But it can easily fall from the list if you let us down."

Evan closed his eyes and gave an internal sigh. He licked his lips. This was not what he wanted to do. He wanted to focus on the problem at hand. Needed to work out where to find the money. He took a deep breath.

"I'll be there in half an hour," he said quietly.

"Good man, Evan," the voice told him, "we knew we could rely on you."

Evan gave an audible groan as he hung up the call. He glanced at the clock. It was coming up to midday now and he only had a day and a half to figure out how to find the money to get Layton off his back – and that was quite aside from trying to track down Alex.

"_Shit,"_ he whispered, shaking his head. This was more than he could take. He was already on the road to cracking up and now he'd found a shortcut.

~xXx~

There was that man again; the one with the lank, greasy hair and Robin was running toward him. Chasing him. Pursuing him. His legs were aching but he couldn't stop. He had to carry on - so much depended on it.

He picked up his speed, faster he ran now, closing the gap, drawing nearer. Just as before the man turned and fired a shot at Robin, but this time the dream didn't fade to black. As though he himself was a mirage the bullet sailed right through his head and a scream rang from behind him. He tried to turn to see who had taken the shot in his place but as he tried to turn around he was swallowed up by darkness.

"_Robin?"_

A voice tried to call him back, to drag him out of the nightmare but his mind wasn't ready to leave it yet. He could feel himself sitting somewhere. The sound of a car alarm was screaming out close by. He forced himself to open his eyes and there he was, inside a car, with a body slumped over the wheel beside him. From the back of their head; his haircut and his clothes, Robin knew immediately who it was.

"_Simon,"_ he breathed. In fear he reached out to roll him over but part way round his face changed in the blink of an eye and Robin found himself cradling another familiar face instead; _Alex,_ lifeless, blood seeping from a cut on her forehead and from her nose. He gave a gasp of horror and recoiled in distress.

"_Robin?"_

The voice was more insistent now. He shook his head, tried to shake himself, to get rid of the images around him and to dispel the dream.

"_Robin!"_

This time there was no arguing with the voice. He opened his eyes but his vision was blurred. A vague shape loomed into view above him. The outline of a person. He blinked a couple of times.

"Hmm?" he mumbled.

"Robin, it's alright." It was Alex's voice.

He tried to focus on her. He could see her a little more clearly now. Her expression was genuine and concerned.

"_Wha_-" he tried to speak but his mouth didn't want to co-operate.

"It's alright," he could feel her checking him over; feeling his head, taking his pulse, "you're alright."

Things still seemed blurred to Robin, both inside his head and through his eyes.

"Really pretty," was all he could mumble.

"Well that's very nice of you but I'm more concerned about making sure you're OK," Alex told him, "drink some of this." She pressed a glass of water against his lips which he drank slowly, "Good boy."

For a second Robin thought she was confusing him with one of his police dogs.

"What happened?" he mumbled.

"You fainted," Alex told him.

Robin groaned in embarrassment.

"Oh _god," he_ closed his eyes, "oh god, I'm sorry." He hung his head, completely mortified by his episode.

"You're dehydrated," Alex told him quietly, "you've had nothing to drink but coffee and alcohol that you're not even used to. You haven't eaten in hours, you had practically no sleep and you're under a huge amount of stress."

"Even so, this is not going to be one of my greatest moments," Robin mumbled.

Alex held out her hands.

"Let's get you onto the couch," she said, "can you walk?" before he could reply, she continued, "because I'm not carrying you!"

She helped Robin get to his feet and walk unsteadily into the lounge where she deposited him on the couch.

"I am _so _humiliated," he said quietly.

"Oh _please,_ I fell through your doorway three days ago," Alex reminded him, "A stumble in the kitchen is nothing."

Robin allowed his head to loll back against the arm of the couch.

"This hasn't been my greatest day," he mumbled then frowned as Alex started undoing the top buttons of his shirt. "What are you doing?"

"Relax, I'm not trying to turn you," sighed Alex, "I'm just helping you to breathe a little more easily."

"You sound like an old _Tunes_ advert," said Robin, "…I think that's enough buttons now!" He felt himself blush horribly.

Alex straightened up and pushed her hair back over her shoulders.

"You've spent the last three days running yourself ragged looking after me but you're not doing a very good job of looking after yourself," she scolded, "I'll get you something to eat, and some more water."

Robin watched her leave the room and became horribly aware that his body was responding to her attention in a way he had not expected.

"Oh _fuck_ off!" he told his over-eager appendage, "She's not even the right gender! Four months and you'll go off for anything!" he rolled over to try to cover it up and wondered how else his humiliation could possibly deepen. His trousers could split, perhaps? Or maybe his old PE teacher could turn up to give Alex a full breakdown of his lack of sporting prowess. He didn't see how else things could possibly get worse.

He tried to think of something to make the swelling go away before she came back. That would be a fine one to explain away. He closed his eyes and gave a deep sigh. In the four months since Simon died he'd been starved of touch and intimacy and he truly missed it. Not so much as a hand over his, a stroke on the arm, a kiss, a touch – four months and not a hint of a warm human gesture. In fact the last time had been in 1995, just moments before he disappeared and woke from his coma. He was forever thankful they had that last moment to remember. It was perfect.

Remembering it wasn't helping him calm down any though.

"_Shit,"_ he hissed as he heard Alex's footsteps coming back. He shuffled a little and tried to hide it under a cushion.

"Here," she brought a glass of water and a plate containing some kind of sandwich across to him, "it's not quite up to the standard of your cooking but it's substantial. You need to get something solid inside of you."

Robin closed his eyes, chomped on his lip and gave a sigh of utter despair.

_Why? Why me?_ He thought silently.

"Thank you," he said quietly.

"I hope the bread's Ok," said Alex, "it was a bit hard."

_Oh for…_ Robin's mind began but it trailed off. He gave a deep sigh. His earlier thoughts of Simon came back to him. He'd vanished from 1995 so quickly that he could hardly grasp what happened in that moment. It was something that had been bothering him but he hadn't managed to find the courage to ask yet. Finally, he decided, this was the right moment. And maybe it would distract him long enough to get his body parts under some control.

"Alex," he began quietly, "what happened when I vanished?"

"What?" Alex wasn't sure what he meant.

"When I woke up and came home," Robin continued, "did I fade away or disappear suddenly… what happened to me? What happened afterwards?"

Alex shook her head slowly.

"I don't know Robin," she said quietly, "Simon just came back into the bar and said you'd gone. Vanished." She paused and frowned. "Had you two… been…"

Robin bit his lip. This was a subject he was trying to _stop _thinking about! He ignored the question.

"Did Simon already know he was dead when I went home?" he asked.

Alex shook her head again.

"No, he didn't," she whispered.

"How did he find out?" Robin asked not a hundred percent sure he wanted to know the answer, "please tell me it was you or Gene who told him?" The look on Alex's face showed him this wasn't the case. "Oh god, how _did_ he find out?"

Alex looked down. She was beginning to wish the memory gaps would come back.

"Keats trapped us all in the basement of Fenchurch West," she whispered, "he'd taken over CID there. He made Simon tell Malcolm and Susannah they were dead, before…" she gave a little pause as her voice threatened to waver, "before he said just enough for Simon to _know."_

Robin's heart sank so hard it may as well have fallen through the floor.

"Oh my god," he whispered. He swallowed. "That was the one thing I didn't want to hear."

Alex looked down.

"I'm sorry," she said quietly.

Robin felt a heaviness settle in his chest.

"How did he take it?" he whispered.

Alex choked a little as she tried to speak. Her eyes filled with tears.

"Robin," she whispered, "Simon will be alright. I won't pretend that his reaction was one of joy, you know full well that would be a lie. But he'll be alright, because he's Simon."

Robin looked down. He started to wish he'd never asked the question.

"Thank you for being honest with me," he whispered.

Alex stared at him for a long time. She wasn't sure what to say. She wished she could wave a magic wand and make everything better but in the absence of such a device all she could offer was a hug, and the sandwich he hadn't started eating yet. She placed it on his lap atop the cushion and gave him a sympathetic smile.

"Try to eat something, Robin," she said quietly, "I don't want you passing out on me again."

Robin slowly raised his body a little and propped himself up. He didn't feel much like eating but didn't want to offer a repeat performance of earlier either.

"Alright," he said quietly.

A file landed in the middle of his sandwich.

"And here," Alex began, "some lunchtime reading material. Learn all you ever wanted to know about Layton's history."

"Oh _great,"_ Robin began sarcastically, "that's going to help my appetite. If I wanted indigestion I'd eat two pizzas again!" He sighed and opened the file as Alex trailed back into the kitchen. He scanned the details with his eyes and tried to take in some of the information. He had a long and interesting career as a criminal but the information seemed a little haphazard, not to mention out of date. "Keats must have got hold of this file to find out more about Layton before he started helping him," he said. He turned over the page and a black and white mugshot greeted him. He gave a gasp and his hand rise to his mouth. "Alex?" he called, _"Alex!"_

A buttery Alex ran back in, halfway through making her own sandwich.

"What? What is it?"

Robin turned the photo around.

"This is him," he whispered.

"Who?"

Robin bit his lip. He realised he'd kept his nightmares to himself.

"I've been dreaming about him," he whispered, "nightmares." He hesitated as he saw the look on her face. "Nightmares. I didn't know who he was before. I'd read about Layton but I've never seen a picture of him until now."

"Robin, are you sure?" Alex whispered.

Robin nodded.

"That's him," he whispered, "I'd know him anywhere."

Alex sank to the ground beside him.

"What happened?" she asked, "in your nightmares?"

Robin hesitated. He wasn't sure he felt ready to share them. But he knew the look in Alex's eye meant it could be important and had no choice.

"I'm running," he whispered, "chasing him. It feels like I'm running forever, and then there he is. He turns around and shoots me."

Alex waited.

"And?"

"And there first time that's where it ended," he said quietly, "it all went black. Apart from this bit… in a car…" he trailed off and shook his head slowly. "But I had it again when I blacked out," he said, "and it was different."

"What do you mean?" whispered Alex.

"This time when he fired his gun it went right through me," he shook his head slowly, "like I wasn't real. Or like I was invincible and it just went straight through" He looked away. "I heard someone screaming. It was like someone else got hit by the bullet."

Alex stared at him.

"Who?" she whispered.

Robin shook his head.

"I don't know," he whispered, "I only heard her screaming."

"Her?"

"It was a female voice," he said.

"Do you remember anything else?" she asked him.

Robin bit his lip.

"There's… there's this bit in a car," he whispered, "…that's not important."

Alex hesitated. She felt as though she'd touched a nerve, but didn't want to press further unless he was ready.

"If you want to talk more about it later…"

Robin nodded.

"Thanks," he whispered.

Alex ran a hand through her hair. She was trying to fit Robin's statement into what they knew for a fact. It was a dream – only a dream – but she remembered how her dreams and nightmares had plagued her both since waking from her coma and in her early days in the other world and knew they should not be ignored.

"We need to find a way to get as much information as we can about Layton," she said quietly, "any information about his current whereabouts."

"If there was any information he'd be in prison for shooting you," Robin reminded her.

Alex sighed.

"There's got to be some intelligence somewhere," she whispered, "got to be a lead."

Robin put down the photograph and turned to the next sheet of paper. He took a large bite of his sandwich and continued to read, then almost choked as he read a sentence that shook him to the core. "Fuck! _Evan!"_

Alex hadn't expected that.

"What?" she asked.

Robin handed her the sheet.

"Evan kind of represented Layton legally, way back in the eighties," he whispered.

"What?" Alex snatched the sheet. She'd overlooked that before. She tried to make a link, make a connection, unravel the deepening mystery but things were becoming ever more blurred.

"He was on part of a legal team that dealt with him," he said, "Tim and Caroline Price?"

Alex closed her eyes. She remembered them, vaguely, but she still couldn't recall very much about them.

"That rings a bell," she whispered. She sighed. "There's too much fog, Robin. Smoke and mirrors. I don't know what's going on any more."

"Then we'll just stick to the facts we know," Robin told her firmly, "we know Layton shot you here in two thousand and eight. We know Keats was helping him bribe a number of people including Evan. We know Evan wanted to have you sectioned." He hesitated. "To stop Layton getting to you? Or to stop Layton getting some kind of _truth_ from getting to you?"

Alex hesitated.

"What do you mean?" she whispered.

Robin wasn't even sure himself.

"I need to get more information," he whispered.

"How?" frowned Alex, "From who?"

Robin bit his lip.

"I've got some favours I can call in," he said.

"Robin, we can't contact anyone…"

"Trust me," Robin told her firmly, "I've got a friend. She helped Simon. I'm sure she'll help us too. And as a bonus she hate Keats almost as much as we do."

"Why?"

Robin swallowed.

"Because he tried to knock her block off," he told her.

Alex gave a gasp.

"_What?"_

Robin put down his sandwich and got to his feet.

"I'll be right back," he said.

"Where are you going?"

"To find a phone, a laptop and a bloody big notebook," he said.

Alex nodded.

"This sounds like my kind of plan," she said.


	55. Chapter 27, 1995: Portamento

**Chapter Twenty Seven: 1995**

Simon wasn't sure quite what expected when he turned the key in the lock. He thought flames of hell would come licking out from the basement, or evil cackling voices would fill the air, or perhaps a terrible stench would emanate from within. None of those occurred. In fact, the only thing that happened was a slight musty smell found his nostrils and a wave of dust made him sneeze.

He wiped his nose on his sleeve, then sighed.

"I _am_ turning into Gene," he mumbled, slowly opening the door as far as it would go. He took a step inside, still on alert for anything strange occurring. He reached out and switched on the lights. One came on quickly with a strange metal clunk while another coughed and spluttered before coming to life. A third stayed dark and dormant, the bulb long-since gone.

_I died here._

Simon couldn't stop that thought from coming back to him as he took another step inside. The memory of his final moments in 1985 was so strong now. Where it had seemed like a strange dream for so long it now felt once again very real and tangible. It brought every part of his memory back to life.

He stepped slowly into the room. The heat was already starting to increase. Why was it so hot down there anyway? Weren't basements usually cold? He pulled his jumper over his head and threw it over the back of a chair. _At least Gene will be pleased to see that off my back, _he thought to himself.

He stood in the middle of the room and spun slowly around, looking at every inch of the basement as he did so. He looked at the walls, the filing cabinets, the furniture, the papers, the stationery – everything as it had been left for the last decade.

Untouched.

He swallowed. The last time anyone had been down there –

He could almost see it now, the bullet coming towards him. It was a bullet fired in a different direction until Keats somehow made a mockery of physics and time. It struck him with a power that took away the life he had in 1985.

The power of that memory, the darkness, began to overwhelm him. He could feel that pain again, feel himself falling, feel the energy leaving his body. He could feel the awful sensation as Keats tried to steal his soul, then the light and the energy as Alex sent him home. Those memories, that time, that god-awful day – every moment of his time in 1985, every moment he spent at the hands of Keats, every second of those final moments as his life ebbed away came back to him and crushed him like a ten ton weight.

He couldn't breathe. His chest felt heavy and his lungs refused to take in any air. His head was spinning and every limb felt heavy and numb. His head tried to block it out, to block up those memories once again and put them back into the pigeonhole he'd filed them away in. There wasn't much energy left for doing anything else.

His legs gave way beneath him as his mind and vision went black and his body cascaded to the floor. There he laid with not a twitch in his body and his mind so far away.

~xXx~

"What have you done to your foot?"

Keats ignored Alex as he walked awkwardly toward the entrance of Fenchurch West.

"Time's wasting, Alex," he said, "let's get into a brand new day and put the street's scum in the cells where they belong."

"But your foot…?" She felt quite alarmed by now.

"It's nothing," he spat then took a breath and calmed his tone, "look, I just hit my toe OK? It's probably nothing."

"It doesn't look like nothing," frowned Alex, "how badly did you hit it? It could be broken."

Keats looked at her with anger flashing through his eyes for just a second.

"I _don't_ want to talk about it," he hissed, "OK?" He saw an anxious look on her face and tried to reel in his temper. "Look, I appreciate your concern," he laid his hands on her shoulders. What was that? Did she flinch? He wasn't sure. "But I'm fine. Let me worry about my body…" His eyes looked her up and down. "You just worry about yours."

Alex turned her head away and cast her eyes downward. Something was most definitely different now. She felt as though she'd spent the last two days under a spell from which was finally awakening.

"_Fine,"_ she whispered. She pushed past him a little and hurried into the building. The sooner she was out of his company the better. She had a sense of dread that she couldn't ignore.

That word still plagued her – "_again."_ What had he meant? If there was history between them it was time for her to find out.

She knew the basement would be hot and heady but she was certain this time she could keep her cool. It was going to be a day for truth and whatever she found she knew it couldn't be any worse than staying in a haze.

~xXx~

He'd been there before, he was sure. It wasn't the first time he'd chased this man. He'd had this dream before but not as clearly as it played this time. He could feel himself getting closer, the distance between them disappearing, and this time he wouldn't get away. This time –

- The man turned around. Once again he fired at Simon but this time his face was plain to see.

"_Keats!"_

The shot he fired sailed straight through him. He reached up to his head and felt for a wound but there was nothing there. Well of course, there wouldn't be – Keats had already proven Simon was invincible. It came with the territory. But the bullet kept on going and an agonised scream rang out.

He spun around to catch a glimpse of whoever had taken the shot but everything went black. It was like closing his eyes.

"_Shoebury…"_

A voice tried to shake him from his daze. He tried to open his eyes but only managed to see once again within his dreamscape and found himself in a car. He'd been _here_ before too. His head hurt. He felt as though his face had struck the steering wheel with force. As he turned his head to the passenger side he found someone slumped over the dashboard. The dark hair and skinny build left him in no doubt who it was.

"_Robin?"_ he gasped his name as he reached out to gently lift his head, but halfway there – as he blinked – Robin changed and in his place lay Alex, her head bloodied and still. "Fuck, _no!"_ he screamed.

"_Simon?"_

The voice was sounding more anxious now. Simon tried to shake himself awake, to leave the nightmare that had disturbed him deeply but it was so hard to wake up.

"_Simon!"_

He was trying… _god,_ he was trying, but he couldn't seem to break away.

"_Oi! Shoebury! Get your bloody homo head back into gear and wake the hell up!"_

OK, _that _worked. He had a feeling the next step was going to be a slap and that wasn't a step he wanted to reach. He forced his eyes open a crack and felt his head flopping from one side to another. He'd been lifted into a sitting position, leaning against something hard. The wall? A filing cabinet? Did it matter? He tried to raise his head and a large figure started to come into focus.

"_Hmmm… Went dark,"_ he mumbled.

"I know the shortest day's coming up but it's a bit early for sunset yet," Gene's voice told him.

Simon felt himself flopping a little to one side. His body seemed so heavy and hard to control.

"Fell over," he mumbled.

"You did more than that," Gene told him, "been out cold ten minutes." Simon felt a glass pressed against his lips. "Drink this."

"What is it?" Simon blinked a few times and finally Gene looked vaguely human instead of lump-like.

"Water," said Gene, "and it's either going down yer neck or over yer face, either way it'll bring you round."

Simon drank from the glass for some time. He felt stupid and ashamed. Passing out was bad enough, but Gene finding him in that state was the ultimate in humiliation. He gave a little gasp as he finished drinking.

"Better?" asked Gene.

Simon nodded slowly.

"Yes," he whispered, "thanks."

Gene set the empty glass down and looked at Simon seriously.

"Knew something like this was going to happen," he said.

Simon tried to wave his hand dismissively.

"Just got claustrophobic," he lied.

"You're not claustrophobic; you're _being-a-real-man-a-phobic_."

Simon scrunched up his face in bewilderment.

"What are you even _talking _about?"

"Look," Gene took one of his arms roughly and began to haul him over to a chair, "Jimbo might claim you're a mini-Hunt but you haven't got the Gene Genie's constitution."

"Oh, what do you mean?" Simon said a little crossly, bringing forth a temper to cover up his embarrassment.

"You've been on the coffee and scotch all night, you had three hours of sleep and you've been eating crap for the last two weeks. There's more pizza in _you_ than in the local branch of Pizza Hut."

Simon looked down, his cheeks flushing with shame. He felt completely, totally and utterly mortified.

"It was being down here," he said quietly, "I thought I could handle it. When I stood where I was when it happened…"

Gene nodded.

"Not nice, I know."

Simon put his head in his hands.

"Why did you come down here anyway?" he mumbled, "I thought this was the last place you would ever step."

"Yeah, well," Gene said gruffly, "thought something like this might happen."

"How?"

"Women's intuition," Gene told him. Simon looked at him strangely, "Kim was worried about you," he explained, "she got me worried too."

Simon nodded slowly.

"Oh," he said quietly.

"That's two bloody times in one day you've made me worry about you," Gene told him, "me reputation's crumbling beneath me."

He started to pull on Simon's tie as Simon's eyes bolted in fear.

"What the hell are you doing?"

"Loosening yer bloody tie, what d'you think"

"Not… strangling me then?" Simon asked sheepishly.

Gene's eyes opened wide.

"You've got such a high opinion of me, Shoebury!" he cried. He started to work on Simon's top button.

"What are you doing _now?"_ Simon cried.

"Relax, Simon, I'm not on the bloody turn, I'm trying to help you breathe easier!"

"Well _don't!"_ Simon estimated he had a maximum of three seconds before things became unbearably embarrassing in the trouser department and had to act accordingly. He got to his feet, pretending he wasn't wobbling all over the place and turned around. Suddenly the wall became a subject of intense fascination as he tried to initiate a substantial cover-up. He tried to think of a subject; _any_ subject to take his mind off the growing issue down below and gave a sigh. There was only one thing he could think of. "Gene, I had this dream. A nightmare."

Gene frowned.

"This had better not be about my bloody squirrel costume again," he warned.

"No, not this time," Simon assured him. He sighed. "I don't understand it but it's freaking me out. The first time I didn't know who it was but I was chasing this man, running really fast, trying to catch him. He turned around and fired a shot at me, and everything went black. There was another… another bit at the end, but," he closed his eyes just for a moment. "But that felt different."

He could feel Gene's eyes on him, waiting for him to continue.

"You said the _first_ time," Gene reminded him.

Simon nodded slowly.

"I just had it again when I blacked out," he said, "and this time I saw who the man was."

"Who?" asked Gene. Simon's silence spoke volumes. "Oh, let me guess," he began, "we're currently standing in his previous domain."

Simon bit his lip and slowly turned around. The thought of his nightmare had killed off any potential embarrassment by now.

"The second time, when he fired at me the shot missed. It kind of went through me and hit someone else but I don't know who."

Gene took in a deep breath and let it out slowly.

"Sounds like a pretty true to life account of Jimbo," he said.

Simon bit his lip.

"Do you think it means anything?" he asked.

Gene considered for a moment.

"I think," he said, "that I need me head read because you've got _me_ thinking there's something more to this claptrap than yer over-active, sci-fi addled imagination," he said, but Simon could see a hint of nervousness in his eye.

"That's what I thought you'd say," he said quietly, then paused. "Are you going to try dragging me back out the basement? After what happened, I mean?"

Gene thought for a second.

"Second reason I need me head read," he said, "but, no."

Simon looked at him in surprise.

"_No?"_

Gene shook his head slowly.

"On the condition you eat something that's not been delivered on the back of a motorbike," he said.

Simon nodded slowly.

"Deal," he said.

"And you check in on the hour, every hour," Gene continued, "otherwise I'm sending Vickery to check on you. And he's already sobbed through a box of tissues today so you won't be wanting that."

Simon gave him a little smile.

"No, Guv," he said.

Gene finally got to his feet. He still felt anxious about Simon having full reign of Keats's previous work, even more so after his turn, but he also knew that Simon was determined, and this could be their best chance at getting Alex back.

"Well?" he said.

Simon frowned.

"Well what?"

"Get searching!" Gene covered up his nerves with mock frustration, "You're not being paid to lay on the floor or give a thorough examination of the paintwork!"

This time Simon's smile was a little stronger and more certain.

"Yes, Guv," he said.

As he watched Gene leave the basement and heard his footsteps slowly disappear he gave a very deep, dark sigh. He hadn't even lifted a file and already he'd spent – _what was it?_ – ten minutes flat out on the floor. He felt his heart racing as he walked towards a cabinet and began to open the drawer. He had much work to do and so much to go through. He had no idea where to start or how long it would take but he was going to find it.

The truth.

It was buried in there somewhere, just waiting to be uncovered.

"You can run all you like, Keats," he told the mental image of him in his mind, "but you can't escape the truth. Not forever."

It was a promise that he made to himself. A promise he made to Gene and to Alex. A promise that he made to Kim, and to all the other people whose lives he'd tainted.

But most of all, it was a threat. A threat to Keats. A threat that whatever made him this way would soon be laid bare for the world to see and, in the process, just maybe the man would be set free.


	56. Chapter 28, 2011: Pietoso

**Chapter Twenty Eight: 2011**

Robin placed the laptop in front of Alex, opened it up and switched it on. As he trailed the power lead to the socket he mumbled,

"I hope Kim won't mind us raiding her electronics."

"I just hope I can figure out how to use her folding computer," Alex said nervously. Evan's had been hard enough to work out.

"You'll be fine," said Robin. He pressed a button as the laptop warned up and opened up the browser.

"What exactly am I supposed to be doing with this?" she asked.

"Look for anything to do with Layton, or Evan," said Robin, "find out about Evan's past. Anything from before your shooting. Anything before his beard modelling days." He paused as he folded over the first page of the notebook he'd fund in the kitchen and took the lid from a biro he'd procured at the same time. "You could try looking for Tim and Caroline Price as well."

"Good idea," said Alex. She clicked something and gave a little gasp.

"What?"

"Kim's got a lot of porn on here," Alex said in surprise.

Despite knowing he'd regret it, Robin couldn't stop himself walking back to the laptop to look at what Alex had found.

"She has?" he asked. He drew back a little. "Ooh, that is _nasty,_" he said. He frowned and looked a little more closely. "Is that a Police officer? What's she doing with the baton?"

"Ugh, I don't think that's a baton," Alex pointed out tactfully.

Robin studied it a little better, cringed and scurried far away from the laptop.

"And there it is," he declared.

"What?"

"That elusive higher level of humiliation I didn't think I'd be able to reach," Robin mumbled, his face the colour of a tomato. He shook his head and gave a deep sigh. He wasn't going to be able to look Kim in the face when she got home. He decided to concentrate on the plan instead of the porn. "Alex, I need to make a call," he said.

Alex tilted her head to one side.

"OK," she said distractedly.

Robin frowned.

"Are you still looking at that filth?" he cried.

"I was just trying to work out if that was humanly possible," she tilted her head a little further, "even if they were _both_ double jointed…"

Robin felt his sandwich threatening to re-emerge and picked up the phone.

"OK, I need to make this call now," he said quietly, "and not think about… how… something that size got in there in the first place. OK?"

Alex looked a little guilty.

"Alright," she said quietly.

Robin closed his eyes as he held the phone. He took several deep breaths before he dialled the number. He knew this was not going to be an easy call to make and was one of the riskiest things he had ever done. Finally he took his courage in both hands, prayed for luck and dialled a number.

"_Come on,"_ he whispered, "be on the desk. Be on the desk. Be –"

"Fenchurch East police station, you're through to the main desk, can I help?"

Robin closed his eyes and gave a deep sigh.

"_Oh thank you,"_ he whispered to no one.

"Hello?" the voice on the line wasn't sure if she'd heard right or no.

Robin took a deep breath.

"Kelly," he hissed, "do not say a _word._ It's Robin."

"But –"

"I know, I know, I'm all over the news, I'm a missing person," Robin said quickly."

"I was about to say that."

"And that's why I told you not to say a word!" Robin informed her, "Kelly, I need you to listen to me, and listen _really _carefully because this is very, _very _important. You have no idea how important. Just pretend I'm a normal member of the public. OK?"

There was a pause.

"Yes, sir," Kelly said eventually, "how can I help you?"

Robin bit his lip.

"What you're seeing on the news… what you're heard… it's lies," he began, "Alex isn't suffering from amnesia, she's not confused… well, not In the way Evan is saying. There's something strange going on with him and we need to find out the truth."

"In what way, sir?"

"Ever since she woke up, Evan's been trying to keep others away from her," Robin's heart was racing now, "like he didn't want her to hear something. Like he wanted to keep something from her. Then he took her out of hospital to keep her practically locked up at home. He threatened to section her and she came to me for help."

"I'm… not sure I understand, sir."

Robin sighed.

"You don't have to, Kelly," he said, "I'll explain everything to you – everything – but right now I need your help. You don't have to understand, you don't even have to believe me, you just have to…" he sighed, "just have to _trust _me." He bit his lip, "like you trusted Simon when he needed you. Even when _I _didn't trust him." Those words were so hard for Robin to say. He heard Kelly clear her throat nervously.

"What do you want me to do?" she asked quietly.

Robin hesitated.

"We need all you have about the current location of an Arthur Layton," he told her, "He shot Alex in two thousand and eight, but he's never been caught." He hesitated. "Stick with me here, Kel. We found a list. A list that belonged to…" he paused. "To Jim Keats." He hesitated. "You remember Jim Keats, right?"

He could almost hear Kelly's jaw clench.

"Yes, _sir_, I do," she said tightly.

"He was helping Layton to bribe officers, lawyers and even other criminals."

"_What?"_

"Calm down!" Robin hissed, "you'll blow the cover of this call!" he paused. "Has anyone noticed?"

There was a pause.

"I'm… not sure, sir."

Robin sighed.

"Then pretend I'm one of those nutters calling up because the traffic light is bleeping too loudly,." He said.

"Alright, sir. I'll take your comments about the traffic light on board."

Robin sighed.

"Kelly, I have no one else I can call. We've been on the news for the last twenty four hours. I'm doing my best to keep Alex safe but until we find Layton there's no guarantee we can manage that." He sighed, "Evan was on the list too, Kel – the Evan you see on the TV is _not_ reflecting the man who wants to lock Alex away. And I'm well aware that this is coming from me, after I went to those dinner parties and got him that_ I Spy Beards _book for Christmas. We've seen another side to him, and Layton obviously knows what's behind it because Evan's name is _on this list."_

"Sir, I don't really know what to say…"

Robin breathed in deeply.

"You helped Simon when he was desperate and even _I'd_ turned my back on him. I need the same trust from you now. The safety of a very dear friend depends on it. Can't you take a leap of faith? Just this one time?"

"But… sir…" she hesitated, "there may be… consequences to this."

Robin closed his eyes.

"I know," he whispered, "and I would never, ever ask if this wasn't so important. Kelly, I have to help Alex. Evan, Keats and Layton… They're all connected and we need to find out how."

"I'm sorry but I don't see what I can do, sir."

Robin took a deep breath.

"Kelly," he whispered, "Keats…."

"Yes?"

"What he pretended to do to Simon…" his eyes closed and his heart felt heavy, "he did to Alex for real."

There was a long pause on the line. It went on for so long that Robin wondered if she was still there. But finally, she spoke again.

"I will do all I can to help you with this matter, sir."

Robin exhaled loudly in sheer relief. So much was riding on this – even_ he_ hadn't known how much until she had agreed to help.

"_Thank you,"_ he whispered.

"In fact," she told him, "I will deal with your case personally. Perhaps liaising would be useful?"

Robin bit his lip.

"That would be a good idea," he said quietly.,

"Could you give me your address, sir?"

Robin glanced at Alex.

"Alex, what's the address of this place?" he whispered.

Alex glanced around guiltily.

"Huh?"

Robin frowned.

"You were still looking at porn!" he accused, "weren't you?"

"I was not!" Alex lied.

"Alex, this place… do you know the address?"

"It's number eleven," she said, "Station Road."

Robin passed on the address.

"I'll be with you soon, Sir. Please hold tight."

Robin's eyes closed.

"Thank you," he breathed.

As he hung up the phone he looked at an expectant Alex.

"Well?" she whispered.

Robin nodded.

"She's going to help up," he said quietly.

"Are you sure it's safe to get someone else involved?" Alex asked.

"We need someone who can help us from the inside," Robin told her, "and Kelly is trustworthy and loyal. She'll help us. We'll find the truth."

Alex glanced at Evan's beard making an emotional plea on the telly again and gave a worried nod.

"I hope so," she said quietly. Time felt as though it was slipping away too quickly.

Robin began to walk back to her.

"Have you found anything yet?" he asked.

Alex bit her lip. She _had_ found something. Unfortunately it was a picture of a lady doing unmentionable things with a cucumber.

"_Gene would have an absolute fit,"_ she mumbled, remembering the pixelated images that passed for porn back in 1995._ "And to think, he was afraid of the incoming twenty first century."_

"Alex!" Robin cried, "That's not what you're supposed to be looking for!"

"But it's like a car crash!" cried Alex, "I know it's awful; but I can't stop looking!"

Robin closed the window and brought Google up instead.

"Here," he said, "start searching. Layton. Evan. The Prices. Not porn."

Alex looked at him a little guiltily. It wasn't the first time she'd been caught abusing 21st century technology.

"Sorry," she mumbled.

~xXx~

Evan felt somewhat anxious as he walked slowly to meet his new client. It was strange but in all the years he'd been doing this job he'd never had such a deep, dark sense of foreboding before. He swallowed as his footsteps echoed down the corridor and a tall officer unlocked the door that held back a figure infamous throughout the capital.

His shiny shoes and pressed suit led him through to find a man standing before him. As the cell door closed behind him it made Evan jump a little. He gave a tiny squeak which he hoped to god no one had heard and cleared his throat.

"Mister Nailer?" he asked, "My name's Evan White."

He held out his hand and Nailer looked at it.

"I know," he said, "I asked for you."

Evan nodded nervously. When it seemed clear Nailer had no intention of shaking his hand, he withdrew the offer.

"Uh, Mister Nailer –" he began.

"Nick," Nailer corrected.

Evan gave a nervous laugh.

"_Nick,"_ he said uncomfortably, "I'm flattered that you asked for me, but…" he paused and frowned. "Have we met?"

Nailer had a strange smile on his face.

"No, but it almost feels like it, doesn't it?"

Evan hesitated.

"Does it?"

"Well, it does to me," said Nailer.

Evan looked down and drew in a deep breath, He wasn't sure if this man was trying to intimidate him or wind him up but he didn't like his attitude.

"Mister Nailer," he tried again, "thank you for asking for me by name. I would, however, like to remind you that the huge amount of evidence stacked against you suggests that the chances of you walking free are practically zero."

"I know that," Nailer said, the conviction of a man who knew his luck had finally run out, "I just need you to get me bail."

Evan frowned.

"Bail?" he repeated.

Nailer nodded.

"I need to get out of here. I know my days are numbered, but there's business to clean up. Got to sort some things out."

"There is also little chance of you being granted bail."

"It doesn't matter how much they ask, I can meet it," Nailer told him firmly, "A million? Two million? Ten? You've got it."

Evan swallowed. This all seemed a little theatrical for him.

"If, Mister Nailer, you believe that getting freed on bail will allow you to abscond…"

Nailer shook his head.

"I've had a good run," he said, "but nevertheless, it's always polite to tidy up the room before you check out the hotel."

Evan ran his tongue nervously round his lips.

"What _exactly_ do you mean by 'business' to attend to anyway?" he asked, "what are you planning to do if you are let out?"

Nailer's expression changed a little. He seemed evasive.

"Need to check on a few people," he said, "got a few contracts to terminate. A few people to say goodbye to." He paused. "I need to see if my girlfriend's OK."

Evan took a deep breath.

"The amount of work required to get you out on bail…" he began.

"…Is what I'll be paying you and your legal team handsomely for," Nailer reminded him.

"But unfortunately I have problems of my own," Evan said, "my goddaughter is missing, and –"

"I know," said Nailer.

"- I also have an important deadline that I can't miss."

"I know."

Evan paused. He looked at Nailer as he developed a twinkle in his eye.

"How can you _possibly_ know?" he asked, "are you on something right now?"

Nailer gave a strange laugh and rubbed his fingers on his chin. His stubble scratched them a little.

"I was thinking we might have a common threat, that's all," he said.

"A common threat?" Evan repeated. He sighed and shook his head slowly. "I think, Mister Nailer, that you should seek alternative representation. I will be telling my team that you were not prepared to co-operate with me and will be looking for a lawyer elsewhere." He gave a grim nod. "Goodbye."

He turned to face the door and prepared to knock but before he had a chance Nailer called out,

"Arthur Layton."

Evan froze right where he was. He felt his heart give a heavy jolt, then he turned around slowly.

"What?" he breathed.

"We're both on his list," Nailer said, one eyebrow raised, "right?"

"What _list?"_ Evan spat.

"Oh, I've seen it," Nailer told him, "Nasty little scrotum, that one. See, he upset one of the other bigwigs on the powder scene and now they're chasing him for every penny he's got." His smile broadened, "but you already know that, don't you, Mister White?"

Evan swallowed. Suddenly he found it incredibly difficult to breathe.

"I think," he whispered, "that I need to get home and be with my family."

"Is that what he's got on you?" asked Nailer, "something to do with that DI bird on the news?"

"You need to stop talking now," Evan told him tightly.

"You know, in the past it didn't bother me," Nailer continued, "I knew that as much as he might have my name on his bribe list he'd never have the guts to come after me. But now I'm on the inside, he's got free run of the world outside and he just might go upsetting my _legal team_ with some information that could add to my sentence."

Evan swallowed. He took a deep breath.

"Mister Nailer, I have until the end of tomorrow to work out his to find enough money to get that _scrotum_, as you put it, off my back. I am not going to waste another moment standing here, listening to you talking in riddles."

Nailed looked at him darkly.

"End of tomorrow," he repeated, "that's a deadline I can work to. Get me out of here by morning and by the end of tomorrow your problem will be…" his smile returned, "how shall I put this? Removed."

Evan stared at him for the longest time. He wasn't quite sure what to say. Nailer seemed to know so much –_ too_ much. Where he'd got the information from, he had no idea. But the fact was that he had it. He knew. And he knew Evan was his best chance at getting out on bail. He opened his mouth to tell Nailer he had no interest on his 'removal' techniques but the thought of another call from Layton brought bile rising in his chest and he couldn't quite manage to turn him down.

He took a deep breath and stared at Nailer. He hated himself for what he was about to do, but being on the right side of the law hadn't done him any favours, had it? He swallowed.

"I will work on your bail right away, Mister Nailer," he said quietly, "but I can't make any promises."

Nailer's smile grew ever broader.

"Make no promises, tell no lies," he said.

Evan bit his lip. It was a bit late for that.

"I'll do my job, and you do yours," he said quietly.

As he knocked on the door and left the cell he felt a horror wash over him. He couldn't believe what he had agreed to, but he felt split between horror and relief. For as much as he needed Layton off his back forever, he felt as though he'd sold his soul to the devil.

In reality, he was only one step away.

~x Xx~

Kim lifted the needle and wiped away the excess ink.

"There you go," she said, "take a look at that."

She gave a sigh of relief as the man got to his feet and walked to check his tattoo in the mirror. It was the third tattoo of Evan's beard she'd had to do that day so far and her stomach was churning. Apparently the sight of him on the news had brought all the Evan fans out of the woodwork and they had all chosen to commemorate his beard in ink. It was putting her off the thought of ever eating again. A flash of blue caught her eye. She glanced out of the window and saw a panda car arriving in the tattoo studio car park. Instantly her heart began to race and her mouth turned dry.

"_Shit!"_ she hissed. She peered through the window as two police officers stepped out of the car and began to walk to the front of the shop. _"shit, shit, SHIT!"_

Were they looking for her or doing studio-to-studio visits in the hope of finding out where Alex and Robin were? Either way she knew that she had to get away, as quickly as possible.

She glanced around. There was nothing else for it.

"Hey John," she called out to reception, "Going to the toilet. Back in five."

"OK," John's voice called back.

With her heart pounding so hard she thought someone had set up a drum kit in her chest, she threw herself into the toilet, locked the door behind her and gulped in several deep breaths. Finally she did what any self-respecting tattooist on the run from the police would do. She closed the lid of the toilet, climbed upon it and hoisted herself out of the open window. She landed with quite a clatter on the tarmac, jarring her legs with the force of her arrival and scrambled back to her feet to make a mad dash to the car.

It was time to get home and to move her guests on. Not that they'd outstayed their welcome, but they needed a safe place, and that no longer would be found with her.

"Oh _god,"_ she whispered as she threw herself into the driver's seat and started the engine, "please be there, Alex. Please be there when I get back."

She didn't believe in God. So she prayed to Gene instead. It was the closest thing she knew. And she knew if anyone would be able to keep Alex safe until her return, _however _he did it, that would be the greatest way.

_**~xXx~**_

_**A/N: Thank you so much to everyone who has been reviewing, alerting and favouriting this story – your support and enjoyment means a lot x x I worked out today there's about 25 chapters left, but bear in mind I kept making estimates with Strangers and ended up hideously far out with those! Tomorrow seems some big questions answered –x-**_


	57. Chapter 28, 1995: Affettuoso

**Chapter Twenty Eight: 1995**

Simon had been feeling for some time that he was out of his depth. Searching Keats's lair had seemed like such a good idea a few hours earlier. Now faced with hundreds of files he could feel himself drowning in paperwork. At first he'd started looking through filing cabinets out found only a lot of past Fenchurch East cases that Keats had been going through with a fine toothed comb. An hour passed in the blink of an eye and before he knew it Gene was checking up on him to make sure he wasn't laying comatose on the floor.

"I almost was," Simon yawned, "this is one of the most boring things I've ever done."

He was, however, grateful for the sandwich Gene had delivered to him.

"I tried to get you something better but the woman with the fat arse has taken over the canteen with sprouts," Gene said miserably.

As Gene departed to do some investigating of his own through the files they'd stolen from Keats's flat Simon decided to try a different tactic and approached Keats's desk drawers instead. He opened one with ease but as it rolled out on its casters he experienced a horrific flashback to the day he died. He'd looked in that same drawer, just before Keats found him lurking down there. Closing his eyes, he reached onto the drawer and knew what he was going to find.

The papers he withdrew from the depths of the drawer had familiar names and familiar faces on them. Susannah, Malcolm, Webber. And someone even more familiar.

"_Me,"_ he whispered, taking his own file from the top of the file. He began to leaf through it sadly. He could still remember the sound of Keats heading into the basement and his sarcastic voice advising;

_"When you attempt to hide in someone's office, it's good practice not to leave one of your crutches leaning against the desk."_

He gave a deep sigh and placed the files on the desk. There was nothing in there he didn't already know. He sank into the chair and withdrew files from deeper in the drawer. This time they were of far more interest. He started with the file at the bottom since it seemed to be the oldest.

"_D and C investigation three-four-zero,"_ he read, _"into Gene Hunt, Fenchurch East."_ He opened the file and slowly began to read through the details._ "Irregularities from Manchester," he _mumbled as he read, _"suspicious death of –"_ he paused,_ "DI Sam Tyler."_

A black and white photograph fell from the file and slowly sailed to the floor. Simon bent down to scoop it up. The picture showed a man with short, cropped hair and a black denim jacket. "Sam Tyler," he said again. So _this_ was Sam. He'd wondered what he looked like. It was strange to have a visual image at last. He pulled a face as he looked at the photograph. It was a nice jacket, he thought. How would _he _look in a leather jacket? He sighed and shook his head crossly. _Focus, Simon,_ he told himself.

He sat the picture to one side and continued to look through the file, reading details about Gene's work in Manchester and his working relationship with Sam. Towards the end of the file Simon's attention began to pique.

"_Tyler's potential was noted and a promotion offered but DI Tyler seemed reluctant to accept. His tenure was reaching an end but his unusual relationship with DCI Hunt brought him a reluctance to progress his own career. Strange behaviour was noted after his promotion was refused, culminating in his death."_

He read on for some time.

"_Acceptance of the nature of the job… believed Hunt to have no recall or understanding… Unable to face the task of alerting Hunt to his own situation." _He bit his lip and looked upward. "Gene didn't know he was dead. And Sam didn't want to tell him." He exhaled slowly. _"Shit."_ What a position to be in, Simon thought. Somehow Sam must have learned the truth about the world and knew Gene had blocked it out. "He was trying to protect him from the truth."

"Who was?"

Simon jumped a mile.

"Shit, Gene, stop doing that!" Simon cried.

"Stop missing yer hourly check-ins then!" Gene reacted. His eyes were drawn to the photo on the desk and Simon heard him sigh. "Bloody hell. Been a while since I saw that ugly mug looking back at me."

Simon picked up the photograph and handed it to Gene.

"This was Sam?" he asked.

Gene stared at the photograph. His expression became a little strained.

"Pain in the arse, but brilliant a DI," he said.

Simon nodded slowly.

"And that's the leather jacket?" he asked. He bit his lip."D'you think I'd suit a leather jacket?"

Gene looked at him warily.

"Not with your jumper, Shoebury," he said.

Simon scowled and put the photo back on the desk.

"Only asking," he mumbled.

"You uncovered anything yet?" Gene asked. He peered over at the file in Simon's hands but Simon closed it hurriedly. He saw a shocked glare appear on Gene's face and looked up a little guiltily. He knew he'd probably overstepped the mark but didn't know how much Gene knew of Sam's reasons for refusing promotion and wasn't sure how he'd take it. He cleared his throat and started to backtrack.

"Found anything meaty in Keats's Nailer collection?" he asked instead.

"Nothing aside from a _Peparami _wrapper," said Gene, "Still looking." He hesitated. "Shut that file a bit sharpish."

Simon bit his lip.

"Yeah."

"Something you don't want me to see or just trying to take me nose off with the world's worst papercut?" Simon's silence told him all he needed to know. "That's bloody brilliant. I give you the key to find whatever passes for the truth and you don't even share it with me."

Simon looked down.

"It's not like that, Gene," he said with a sigh, "I've only just started piecing some of this stuff together. I need to know I've got the full picture before I can tell you. Otherwise I could get stuff wrong and end up in a worse mess than before."

Gene stared at Simon. His eyes were downcast and it made Gene anxious to think about what he had already found. He took a deep breath and slowly moved to the door.

"In that case," he said, "I'd better leave you on your own with Jimbo's doodles. Because I want to know, Simon. I want to know what you find. You'd better make sure you come up for air in an hour or I'll be back down." He paused as he noticed the uneaten food on the plate. "You've not touched your sandwich either.

"I'm not hungry," Simon said quietly, even though his stomach growled so hard the file on his lap vibrated.

"I told you, I don't want to find you having pretty dreams of Jimbo on the floor again," Gene told him crossly, "eat that bloody sandwich or it'll be sprouts for you."

Simon pouted.

"Fine," he mumbled, lifting the sandwich and taking a bite. He chewed it but it seemed tasteless. In the presence of Keats's belongings his taste buds seemed to have keeled over and died.

He watched Gene leave the room and disappear slowly up the stairs before he turned back to the files in question, then he forced down half of the sandwich while he read on further about Sam Tyler and Gene's life in Manchester. Not for the first time it made Simon wonder idly about his own Mancunian family. It was a part of his family tree that he'd never even really thought about until his conversation with Gene earlier. Now he began to regret never looking at that part of his life when he was alive. He'd never have the chance now. Not unless Gene ever took him on a field trip up north, anyway.

With a hefty sigh he concluded his reading of the Tyler file and moved onto the next file in the batch; an absolutely enormous file labelled _DI Alex Drake_. As he opened it he found myriad reports on her part in the collars that had taken place in CID since her arrival. There were highly detailed breakdowns of her skills and value to the team and to the station as a whole as well as her working partnership with Gene. He turned a page and found a photograph of Alex; a very different looking Alex to the one he'd met on his arrival in either 1985 or in 1995. It was Alex with a bubble perm, white leather jacket and bright, bold eighties clothes.

"Gene was right, I really_ am_ the only one who never turned up in a bloody leather jacket," he frowned. He glanced at the Sam Tyler photo again. Maybe he _would_ suit one. It was something to think about. He didn't want to break with tradition, after all.

He flipped over to another page, losing the photograph of Alex in the ether and continued to read through the file. There were so many pages, all dog-eared as though they had been read time and again.

"He must have been reading about her _all_ the time," Simon whispered to himself, a strange chill settling over his shoulders as he said those words. It made him increase his speed a little, hurrying his search, desperate to escape the lair of evil he'd found himself rooting through.

Towards the back of the file were papers about an imminent promotion she was to be offered in 1982; a promotion which her shooting by Gene put on hold. As he read on so much began to fall into place, but none of it about Keats. This was background; fact. Things that he was almost certain that Gene himself wasn't even aware of. He felt uncomfortable having so much power in his hands all of a sudden. The dilemma of whether to tell Gene, and of how much to share, stung his heart. The last thing he wanted was to cause him any more anxiety or pain. His concern for Alex was already consuming him inside. On the other hand, he respected Gene too much to keep this from him.

As he made a reluctant decision to talk with him, he realised there were other drawers he hadn't explored in the desk. He tried another, which opened easily. It was full of stationery. Pencils, to be precise. Very neatly stored pencils, organised by softness, colour, size and _writeability_. That didn't surprise Simon in the slightest. But the next two drawers down were locked and wouldn't budge, no matter how hard he pulled on them and swore at them.

As time for his next hourly check rolled around he took a deep breath and tried the phone on Keats's desk. To his surprise it was still connected and he tapped in Gene's extension number.

"Hello, Gene?" he began, "do you mind coming down?"

"First time you remember to check in and I still have to come and play down in Jimbo's sandpit?" Gene asked crossly.

"We need to talk," Simon said simply.

Gene hesitated.

"I'll wear me rubber pants," he said.

"Oh, and one more thing," Simon said, "can you bring down some tools?"

"Tools? What do I look like, highest ranking odd job man in the Met?"

"I need to break open Keats's drawers," Simon explained.

Gene sighed.

"What do you want me to bring?"

Simon wasn't all that knowledgeable with the names of tools.

"Some prisey-open things," he said."

Gene hesitated.

"That's the technical term for them, is it?"

"Well I don't know what they're called!" cried Simon, "I'll leave it to your discretion, shall I?" he paused, "can you bring down some chocolate too?"

"Chocolate? You having a bloody picnic?"

"I need a sugar rush," sighed Simon whose lack of sleep was getting to him. He bit his lip. "And bring your scotch."

"I warned you, you've not got the constitution for that," Gene warned.

"It's not for me," Simon said quietly, "It's for you."

Gene hesitated.

"I'll be there in five minutes," he said eventually.

Simon exhaled loudly as he put down the phone. The last thing he wanted to do was to pass to Gene what he'd learned. It wasn't even about Keats but it had such importance for Gene and his world. He sighed. That was all he seemed to do now - bring bad news.

"That's what I should put on my door. _DCI Shoebury-Thomas: Bearer of bad news."_

~xXx~

Alex watched the clock as the afternoon rolled heavily around. Her day so far had been strange and uncomfortable to say the least. She had made her way down to her office in the basement immediately only to be recalled by Keats on three separate occasions, each more meaningless than the last.

The first time he had paraded her through CID on the premise of handing her some files, then walked her back through in the opposite direction, one hand on her behind. That was the last place she wanted his hand to be – well, _one_ of the last places, but she had gone into autopilot just to survive the feelings of discomfort, anxiety and awakening so she did nothing to remove it. He had smirked at every last member of his team as he'd shown her off. To the men he gave a _"You could never pull this"_ look, while to the women he gave a _"You could never BE this"_ look. She noticed in particular a cold glare from the redhead she'd met over the last couple of days, but her gaze was not the same as the others. There was no hint of jealousy. Her look was one of emptiness. Even pity. Alex wasn't sure she understood that.

The second time, he'd called her up to ask her whether she wished to go for lunch, then in the same breath reminded her of her gluttony from the night before and how disappointed in her he had been. Before he'd even made them, he cancelled the lunch plans and sent her back down to the basement where one of his minions had followed a few minutes later with a plate of limp salad for her.

The third time he'd only called her up to ask how she was getting on.

"Fine, _thank_ you sir," she said tightly. What she wanted to say was _"I'd be getting on even better if you didn't find excuses to get me back upstairs every few seconds."_

If he wanted to see her so badly why didn't he go down _there_ to see her? Was it that bloody toe again? Or was he trying to get her to exercise by marching up and down the stairs? That thought made her scowl.

By two o clock her anger had reached new heights. There were reminders of their encounter the day before all around down in the basement – the stain on the desk, a piece of clothing, a couple of broken items that had fallen from the desk in the midst of passion... But the heat and the heady atmosphere were missing. What was different? Had he 'fixed the air conditioning'? She shuddered as she thought about the strange feeling that had taken over her mind the day before. It was more than just the heat or the lack of food. It was almost as though something had taken over her mind.

She recognised the feeling. It had taken her a while to place it but she remembered it from her labour with Molly. Gas and air. That was what the feeling reminded her of; the air around her laden with something she didn't want to breathe, clouding her mind and making her body numb. The sensation of her head lolling and her inability to control her mind or actions resurfaced as she thought about it. It made her shudder and flinch.

There was something. Something amiss. Something she needed to work through. She'd been suspicious from the moment it happened but with each minute that passed by her head became a little clearer and his mask was slipping by a fraction.

For the second day her stomach was empty and her self-confidence was sliding away. She stared at the limp salad on the plate, then at the dark and foreboding walls around her. If Keats held such high respect for her work then why was she holed up like a rabbit in a hutch?

It was time. Something snapped inside of her and finally it was time. Time to find out once and for all what was happening, what was really going on with Keats and Fenchurch West. She got to her feet and took a deep breath. She didn't even know where to start but the courage she'd been waiting for all day was starting to gather now. It was time to start the search; for the real Keats, for her real purpose in Fenchurch West and for the reason behind that little word – _'Again'_. She knew the answers might not be what she wanted to hear. She knew they wouldn't be pretty. But they were the least she owed herself.

~xXx~

"Here's yer prisey-open things," said Gene, handing a tool box to Simon with a bar of chocolate sitting on the top.

"Thanks," Simon said quietly, taking the box and pretending he knew which tools to use to break into a drawer. He looked at Gene and shuffled a little nervously.

"Either you're desperate for a piss or you've got something to tell me," Gene observed.

Simon nodded slowly.

"I think you need to sit down, Gene," he said quietly. He watched Gene sink slowly into a chair, then sat opposite him. He couldn't bring himself to meet his eyes fort a moment, nor could he work out how to begin. Finally he cleared his throat.

"Spit it out, Shoebury," Gene prompted, "I'm not here to make the basement look better."

Simon took a deep breath.

"I know why Keats was sent here," he said quietly.

"Yeah, to poke his bloody nose in because my bullet accidentally ended up in Bolly's guts," said Gene.

Simon shook his head slowly.

"No," he said.

That came as a shock to Gene for a start. In all the years since Keats had shown up on the doorstep that had been a certainly. A given. There was no other reason Keats would have arrived. No other reason for D&C to get involved.

"No?" he swallowed.

"Not really," Simon whispered.

Gene pursed his lips for a moment. He wasn't sure how to respond to that.

"So was it because he wanted some lessons in being rugged and handsome?" Gene joked. His words masked his fears.

"Sam Tyler turned down his promotion," Simon said quietly, "right?"

"I bloody told you that already," said Gene, "got any more obvious pieces of information in there? The moon isn't really made of cheese?"

Simon took a deep breath. He knew he was going to have to talk over Gene to get this message across.

"Gene, they wanted Sam to be like you," he said quickly, "His promotion to DCI wasn't just going to be the recognition of his hard work. It was because they saw his potential to do what you do. Helping people. Sending them on their way."

Gene stared at Simon. He swallowed as his eyes flitted to the photograph of Sam that still sat on the desk.

"OK," he said quietly.

"Sam turned that promotion down," Simon carried on quiet, "but his time was almost up. He'd outlived his welcome in your world. He was supposed to move up to DCI, but he refused so things started falling apart for him. I guess that would mean stars and stuff." He looked down. "Gene, Sam didn't turn down the promotion because he didn't want the job." He took in a jagged breath. "He knew what your world was about. He knew the truth about you. But he also knew that you'd forgotten, or that you just didn't know. He'd come from the outside world and he understood in a way none of the others did. He knew that if he became your equal it would reveal that truth to you – that you were dead… that your whole world was…" He closed his eyes and trailed off.

He could hear Gene gulping whiskey.

"Go on," Gene's voice said eventually.

Simon gave a sad sigh.

Sam turned down promotion to protect you," he whispered, "he cared too much to see the truth destroy you."

Gene breathed heavily in and out. His mind went over Simon's words.

"Like it almost did when Jimbo dug it up," he whispered.

Simon's eyes turned back to Gene.

"Sam gave up his life here to protect you so you could lead yours," he whispered, "so you could carry on living without knowing you were…" he looked down and shook his head. "What _happened_ with Sam's death?"

He heard Gene take another gulp.

"I faked it," he said quietly, "and then Sam went to the pub. I didn't know. I didn't remember. But when he walked through the doors," there was a pause, "I knew. Just for a moment, I knew."

Simon nodded slowly and looked at him again.

"D and C didn't see it the same way," he said, then hesitated. "…what does D and C stand for anyway?"

"Discipline and complaints," Gene explained.

Simon frowned.

"Does it?" he asked. He blushed.

"What did you think it stood for?" Gene asked accusingly,

"Uh, _Dead and Comatose,"_ Simon said, a little ashamed.

Gene rolled his eyes.

"I thought you were going to say something ruder than that."

Simon thought for a moment, and worked out what Gene was going to suggest.

"No!" he cried. He felt his blush grow angrier and tried to get his mind back on track. "Gene, they saw you as trying to hold Sam back. They thought you didn't want him as your equal. You said yourself that your world was smaller back then… well, it was starting to grow and it was becoming too much for you. You moved down here and Manchester… well, they started anew."

Gene stared at Simon, trying to take it all in. He was right to recommend bringing the scotch.

"So I came to the soft-arse south, and then what?" he asked.

Simon sighed.

"Alex's potential was noted early on," he said, "they watched how she was in this world and how she worked with you. She'd been earmarked for promotion and wheels were in progress to offer it to her when she was shot." He hesitated. "By you."

"Did you really need to add that as a bloody afterthought?" Gene mumbled, taking a sip from his bottle.

Simon looked down.

"Sorry, Guv," he said quietly. He sighed. "Keats wasn't here because they thought you'd tried to 'kill' Alex. He was here because there were concerns that you were trying to hold back anyone who might become your equal. Anyone who, in becoming a DCI, would make you infinitely aware of your own situation." He looked at Gene seriously and put it in the very clearest of terms. "They sent Keats to see if you had forgotten."

Gene gulped. He didn't mean to. The sinking of his heart and the horror rising in his chest forced it. He rang his tongue nervously across his lips, then wiped them with his fingers.

"They thought I needed me memory jogged," he said quietly.

Simon nodded slowly.

"But they sent a madman," he sighed.

Gene hesitated.

"We already said he wasn't a monster at first," he reminded him.

Simon nodded.

"That's true," he said quietly, "but they clearly sent the wrong person. Someone who can be corrupted that way in a job like that…"

Gene nodded grimly.

"But if I hadn't blocked it out, none of this would have happened," he said.

"You can't blame yourself," Simon told him, "it's not your fault."

Gene took in a deep breath.

"Any leads to what turned him into the triple-headed mutant we know and love?" he asked.

Simon shook his head.

"Not yet," he said, "but I'm hoping the prisey-open things might help with that. Maybe there's something in that drawer." He paused and glanced back to Sam's photograph. "Gene, what do they mean by your '_unusual relationship'_ with Sam?"

Gene frowned.

"What?"

"It's something they said in the report," Simon explained a little apologetically, "I just wonder –"

"I wasn't slipping up 'is back alley if that's what you're suggesting!"

"Gene!" Simon cried in horror, "I wasn't even thinking that!"

Gene looked a little ashamed.

"Sorry."

"If that's still what you think of me, after all this time… if that's still all you think I've got on my mind then we've not come very far at all."

"Well, it _is_ isn't it?"

"No!"

"You think I didn't notice yer trouser tent earlier on?"

_Oh god;_ Simon's entire sense of self-respect and dignity fell through the floor in that moment. He thought he'd gotten away with it. He really,_ truly_ did.

"Gene, I'm still_ human!" _he cried, "Robin's been gone weeks and, quite frankly, things are getting a bit…" he turned the colour of a post box, "_desperate_ in that region, thanks very much. You wait until Alex has been gone a few more days and you start experiencing trouser lumps in front of the woman with the fat arse in the canteen! Then see how you like it when people start drawing attention to that!"

Gene had to admit that he could see Simon's point. Well, he could fairly_ literally_ see his _point_ earlier on. Now he just understood what he was saying. There was a part of him that hated some of the old prejudices he still couldn't shake. But he was trying, changing and growing. All the people he'd met along the way saw to that. With a sigh he looked down and began,

"Sam Tyler was my friend." He paused. "And I've never had many of those." He looked away. "In fact, he's probably the only one."

Simon stared at him.

"He was?"

Gene gave a sigh.

"I've had _mates._ People to go down the pub with. People to rip the shit out of when they mess up on the karaoke. But not friends."

Simon looked at Gene a little sadly. For all he had achieved in his world, and despite his close relationship with Alex, he cut quite a solitary figure still.

"I'm sorry for pushing it," he said quietly, "It's just, you've been so evasive about it."

"Only friend I had, and I had to say goodbye to him," Gene said gruffly, "the way of this world, Simon. You meet people and then you have to say goodbye. Sometimes it's best not to have friends." He swigged from his bottle before he continued. "Tyler brought out the best of me and the worst of me. We fought liken cat and dog. But he was always there. And that was the last time I had a friend." He stared at the bottle and mumbled_, "until now,"_ but he expressed his afterthought so quietly that Simon didn't hear.

"Sorry," Simon said quietly. He wished he hadn't pushed the matter so hard. He could understand a little more now why Gene had been reluctant to talk about Sam. His eyes flicked to the photo on the table again.

"Enough of this mushy friendship bollocks," Gene told him crossly, "are you going to use those prisey-open things or not?"

Simon hesitated. He was itching to get started on looking through Keats's locked drawers but wanted to do it by himself. As with the files he'd found already he needed to vet the information he found. If there was something Gene wasn't ready to know then Simon had to find a way to approach it gently. He bit his lip.

"Gene, can you do me a favour?" he asked.

"You want me to teach you the real names for the prisey-open things?" Gene guessed, "So that you don't sound like such a nerdy, poofy lump?"

Simon frowned.

"That wasn't what I had in mind, _actually_," he mumbled, "no, if I give you my key can you go and feed my guinea pigs?"

Gene stared at Simon as though he'd just asked him to drop his trousers and paint his tackle blue.

"Gene Hunt does not feed pets," he said.

"Oh come on, Gene," Simon pleased, "I can practically hear them squeaking from here!"

"That's yer brain, it needs oiling."

"Oh come on! We were out all night on the stakeout, they've got hay and pellets –"

"What the hell are pellets?"

"- but they need some veggies."

"You've got veggies for brains," said Gene.

Simon pulled out his key.

"Go on, it's only down the road! You don't even have to drive."

"Since when has not driving ever been an incentive for me to do something?" Gene asked.

Simon exhaled loudly. He wasn't getting anywhere.

"Alright," he pulled a fiver from his pocket, "feed my guinea pigs and buy yourself a latte on the way back. You're not barred any more. They've taken your picture down."

Gene looked at him slightly incredulously, but then relented. He _had_ missed his daily latte.

"You have got yourself a deal," he said, "but just feeding. No talking and no petting. Doesn't matter how furry they are."

"Deal," said Simon.

The key and money exchanged hands leaving Simon with his prisey-open things and a couple of locked drawers. The thought of what he would find inside of them was daunting but he knew he was coming closer to finding the truth behind Keats's change from man to monster. Whatever lay the other side of those drawers would change their lives forever. Whether that would be for the good or the bad, he was yet to discover. Either way, the moment had arrived.

"Time to open up and spill your secrets, Keats," he whispered. The truth behind 1983 would be locked away no more.

_**~xXx~**_

_**A/N: There will be a double dose tomorrow night – they're both fairly short chapters so I'll post them up together!**_


	58. Chapter 29, 2011: Flebile

_**A/N: This is the first of 2 chapters up tonight!**_

**Chapter Twenty-Nine: 2011**

Alex's heart gave a thump as the doorbell rang.

"It's alright, I've got it," Robin said nervously as he got to his feet. Alex listened anxiously as he trailed into the hall and answered the door. She tried to catch the conversation but it was quiet and mumbled. She turned back to the screen and continued searching for Evan while pretending Kim's shocking collection of 'photographs' was not still open in another window.

"…Where did you park?" Robin's voice became loud and clear now as he arrived in the doorway with a young female sergeant.

"Around the corner," she said, "don't worry, no one saw me come in."

Alex got to her feet and gave a slightly strained smile.

"Are you going to introduce us?" she asked.

"Alex, this is Kelly," Robin explained, "a good friend of mine, lynchpin of uniform and Simon's saviour a fair while ago."

Alex held her hand out to shake Kelly's, but realised she felt a slight pang of something strange. It wasn't jealousy exactly, but it was close. She realised she had started to feel extremely possessive of Robin to the exclusion of others. In a strange place with only two allies she somehow found the thought of him having other friends uncomfortable.

"Nice to meet you," Kelly said a little awkwardly, "you look different… than I imagined."

Alex frowned.

"Oh?" she gave a slightly strained smile. "and how did you think I'd look?"

"Shorter hair," Kelly said quietly.

Robin hesitated. This was all getting a little strange, even by his standards.

"Kelly, thank you, thank you so much for coming," He said eventually.

"I still don't know how I can help," Kelly said quietly.

"Sit down," Robin said, clearing a space on the couch where Keats's files had been.

Alex felt a little like a spare wheel.

"I'll make some coffee," she said quietly, "Kelly? Would you like some?"

"Oh yes please," said Kelly, "Black, with two sugars. Thank you."

Alex's smile was a little uncomfortable as she left the room and Robin felt a little strange too.

"Is everything OK, Kel?" he asked as he sat beside her.

Kelly nodded slowly.

"I'm just worried about you," she said quietly. She looked at him seriously. "What's going on, Robin?"

"Oh God, Kelly, I wish I knew," Robin sighed, "it's all gone haywire. Ever since Alex woke up, Evan turned into a totally different person. I thought he was such a nice guy… well, we _both_ did, Simon and me… he was only too happy to cosy up to Simon when he killed Keats and let me spend hours by Alex's bed, but the second she woke up…" he paused, "Kelly, he stopped me from seeing her. He told me repeatedly she was too weak and too tired, then he told me I was developing an…" his face developed a look of fury _"Unhealthy attachment_ to her," he was still fuming abou t that remark, "the next thing I knew she was knocking on my door. Evan took her out of hospital to stop anyone seeing her and she heard him making the arrangements to have her sectioned."

"What has any of this got to do with Layton?" Kelly asked, "aside from the obvious."

Robin bit his lip. There was so much he couldn't say.

"Alex doesn't belong here," he whispered, "not any more. And she needs to find a way out and a way to escape Evan safely. Keats…" he swallowed. He knew he couldn't explain about Gene's world and the shot Keats fired that sent Alex to 2011 but there was another Keats connection he could use as an excuse. "Alex wanted to find out about Keats after she learned about his attempt at killing her in her hospital room. We went to his flat and we found these papers. They were hidden under a floorboard." He looked sadly at his foot. "My shoe was a casualty in the drama."

"You mentioned something about that on the phone," Kelly said quietly.

"Keats was helping Layton to bribe all these people," he reached for the lists, "a whole lot of officers, lawyers, even other criminals. He was providing Layton with the contact details, then when Layton received bribe money he'd split it with Keats. Some of these people paid up two or three times before he moved onto the next one. There are bank accounts and all sorts here."

"Why would Keats do that?" Kelly took the papers and glanced through them, "I know he was a sick dude, but even so… how did he even meet Layton?"

"We don't know," said Robin, "that's not even important. We guessed that Layton was just looking for someone bent enough to do this, and Keats…" he sighed.. "He probably just liked hearing all of Layton's gossip. Whatever Layton had on these people, Keats probably knew he could use too. Not sure if he ever did, but the option was always there. Keats was that kind of bastard."

Kelly nodded slowly. She understood that much.

"So, about Evan…?" she prompted.

"Evan was on the list," said Robin, "in fact, he was the last name on the list. When he didn't respond to Layton's last blackmail attempt Layton must have shot Alex, then went into hiding."

"What was he blackmailing him about?"

"That's what we need to find Layton for."

"Don't you think that's a bit dangerous?" Kelly frowned, stating the obvious, "He's shot Alex once – he's clearly a dangerous man. He could do the same thing. He could kill you both. And me." She shuddered. "How come I've gotten mixed up in this anyway?"

"Because you never could resist my puppy-dog eyes?" Robin tried to joke.

"Your canine puns are getting worse," Kelly told him as Alex returned.

"Coffees," she said, placing a tray on the table.

"Thanks," Kelly said quietly.

Alex sat down and looked at Kelly curiously. There was something about her. She couldn't explain it. It was as though Kelly didn't want to catch her eye.

"So," she said quietly, "Robin said you had a brush with Keats." She noticed Kelly's face understandably growing darker. "We've all been there," she said quietly. "Can I ask what happened?"

Kelly finally looked up at her.

"I try not to think about it," Kelly told her.

Alex nodded slowly.

"I understand," she said slowly, "sorry."

"Kel, I think it might help if you talked about it," he said quietly.

"Help who?" Kelly asked quietly, "help my nightmares to come back?" She paused and closed her eyes. She didn't want to go there but Robin's words during their phone call played on her mind. She knew she was in the company of others who felt the same hatred to Keats as she did. "Look," she said quietly, I don't remember it all."

"Just tell us whatever you can," Alex said quietly.

Kelly looked down at her hands.

"Simon came to the desk one morning," she said quietly, "he looked terrible. He said he wanted to report a drugging and an assault and I thought it was a CID case until he told me he was talking about himself. I took him through for an informal interview. He gave me things he'd collected up as evidence and I took them away but Keats's DI accosted me in the corridor and told me he needed to take the evidence. Because of Simon's standing his case was apparently a CID matter. As soon as I handed it over I had second thoughts so I tried to follow him and ask for it back, but guess who was coming down the corridor?"

Alex swallowed. She didn't need to guess.

"Oh no," she whispered.

"To this day I don't know what Keats used to hit me," she whispered, "but he hit me so hard he cracked my skull and I needed a ton of stitches too." She leaned forward and parted her hair a little for Alex to see. It made her flinch and withdraw in horror. Even now she was discovering things about Keats that turned her stomach.

"Oh Kelly," she sighed sadly, "I'm so sorry."

Kelly smoothed down her hair and looked away.

"They said I was lucky," she whispered, "they said it could have been worse. I didn't feel lucky. I don't know how long I was unconscious for. Maybe only a couple of hours bit it felt," she swallowed, "like months."

Robin's eyes rose and found Alex staring back at him.

"Kelly –" he began but the sound of the door opening at speed interrupted his train of thought.

"Alex!" Kim's voice cried urgently, "Robin! You've got to move. The police are –" she skidded in the doorway and froze, "- sitting in my lounge, drinking coffee, apparently," she concluded in shock.

"Kim, this is Kelly," Robin said quietly, "she's a friend of mine from work. She's going to help us."

"I'm still a bit hazy on that part," Kelly mumbled.

"Well you're going to have to do it elsewhere," said Kim, "because two of your friends just arrived at my place of work, looking for information on the _nutcase_ who wanted to tattoo his police dogs!"

"Shit," Alex and Robin cursed in unison.

"I came straight here," Kim panted a little, "but we've only got a short time. When they speak to John, then see I'm missing they'll be round."

"Right, grab the Layton stuff and take it to my car," said Robin, "We'll move right away."

"Where the hell do we go now?" Alex whispered, "We're out of places to run."

Kelly took a deep breath. She knew she was going to regret it, but something inside her put words in her mouth and before she could stop herself she blurted,

"You can come to mine."

"What?" Robin thought he'd misheard.

"But you have to be discreet and make it fast," she hissed.

Robin jumped to his feet.

"Of course," he nodded solemnly.

Alex looked at Kelly in surprise.

"Thank you," she said, bowled over by the kindness of a stranger.

Kelly looked a little awkward again, not to mention anxious.

"Anyone finds out about this, it will be the end of my career," she whispered.

"It's already the end of mine," Robin mumbled.

Alex's heart sank. Somehow she had lost sight of Robin's future in the middle of all this.

"Oh Robin," she said quietly.

Robin waved his hand dismissively.

"Time to deal with that at a later date," he mumbled, "come on, let's load up and ship out."

In a flurry of activity, the four of them set about gathering up all they needed and carried it quickly to Robin and Kim's cars outside. There was a buzz of anticipation as they poured into the vehicles and Kelly instructed them toward her house. They'd been moved on yet again but they had a new ally and a new wave of focus on their journey. The truth was still far away but with Kelly's help maybe they could find out more about Layton, and with the files in their possession they could begin to fill in the gaps.

Alex stared out of the window as Robin drove along. Her mind began to wander; to wander miles away. To wander _years_ away.

"I'm coming home Gene," she whispered, "I don't know how but I'm getting closer. I can feel it in my bones." She closed her eyes as one tear rolled down her cheek. "I hope you can feel it too."


	59. Chapter 29, 1995: Troppo

_**A/N: the second of tonight's double dose!**_

**Chapter Twenty Nine: 1995**

"I am not very good at using prisey-open things," Simon observed as he finally forced the first drawer open, almost losing three fingers in the process. He leaned back against the wall, panting heavily and reached for the chocolate. That sugar rush was definitely needed now.

He sank into the chair, took a large bite of the bar and chewed it with a sigh. He wasn't sure how ready he was to face the contents of that drawer. It was with great trepidation that he finally opened it and pulled from within it a D&C issue handbook.

"_Policing the Police Who Don't Know They're Dead,_" Simon read the title. He felt his stomach lurch at the thought. "Oh, right, no advice about how to cope when you're separated from your lover by life and time but this they've got a handbook for!"

He began to flick through it, feeling increasingly nervous and as though he was intruding on an aspect of the world that he really shouldn't know about. He had great respect for the nature of the place and this felt like a step too far.

One chapter caught his eyes though and made him stall.

"_New School Versus Old School,_" he read. With a frown he scanned the chapter. _"Phasing out of dead DCIs,"_ he whispered. His brow wrinkled into a frown as he realised what the book was saying. "Shit…" He felt a lump in his throat which he couldn't swallow back down. He thought about the difference between Gene and himself and Alex. They all had the same job to do but Gene was the only one who had been dead on arrival. Both he and Alex had been in this world knowing full well it wasn't real at first. Keats too. Was that why Gene forgot? Did it make the difference, knowing where you were from? That would make sense in the context of offering Sam Tyler a promotion too.

Even so, the book was more than he could handle so he tossed it aside and found a dossier on Gene, every word of which had been lovingly typed by the delicate hands of one Jim Keats.

"Oh _great,"_ he sighed, "a spot of light reading."

He leaned back and opened up the first page, but almost immediately he sat both upright once again with eyes as wide as saucers.

"_Fuck my head right off!"_ he cried, his shock reaching epic proportions. His hand rose to his mouth as he stared at the words on the page. He read through them, wishing that they would suddenly have a different meaning, but they didn't change. They seemed ludicrous at first, but as he read on they started to make more sense. It still seemed ridiculous in many ways but things were starting to slot into place.

"That's it," he whispered, "that's the difference. That's why this station is different to the others." He paused. "That's why _Gene_ is different to all the others."

To his surprise he felt his eyes beginning to fill with tears. He cursed himself for it. It was such a stupid thing to become emotional about, but he couldn't help it. Perhaps it was a culmination of many things – the lack of sleep, his separation from Robin, coming to terms with his death and his role in the world – but this was the discovery that tipped him over the edge.

"But… but I don't understand," he whispered to himself as he turned page after page, "how can this be _wrong?_ How can it possibly be wrong for Gene to be this way? Gene's the one getting it right. This is the _only_ place that's getting it right…" He shook his head firmly. He didn't agree with what Keats had said in many ways but he could see the start of a theory forming. He was coming closer to the truth now and it was not what he had expected.

As the report went on, Keats's words became less and less coherent and more like the inane ramblings of a madman. His descent into insanity and evilness had been more or less documented through his words, like a rollercoaster that started off smoothly then began a steeper and steeper descent until he was sliding almost vertically downward. Right down, in fact, into the basement.

"I think I understand now," Simon shuddered as he reached the end of the document. He hadn't had the time to read it all. He knew he had to skim for the most important parts. But as much as he'd read, it made sense to him and gave him a direct line of sight to the root of the issue.

He glanced at the clock. It was surely check-in time. This was _not _a good time for Gene to burst in looking for him so he decided reluctantly to leave the basement for a few minutes and check in first, then return to go through the rest of the drawers.

He locked the door on his way up and returned to CID to find a bloated Gene and a desk full of empty Styrofoam cups.

"Gene, what the hell's happened?" he demanded.

"You were right, they've revoked me ban," said Gene.

"So… you're drinking all their merchandise before they ban you again?" Simon guessed.

"Just catching up for lost time," Gene hiccupped, "God, I need to open the floodgates, s'cuse me, Shoebury."

Simon stepped quickly out of the way as a latte-logged Gene made a fast exit to the gents.

"Well consider me checked-in for the hour," he called after him. He glanced at Kim who was busy moving her belongings across the room. "Playing musical desks?" he asked.

Kim shook her head.

"Hunt was being serious about that promotion," she said, "I'm once again restored to my former glory. DS Stringer at your service."

Simon smiled.

"Well done, Kim," he said. He began to look a little anxious. "How many lattes did he get?"

"I think he said twelve was the golden number," Kim told him.

Simon frowned.

"The fiver didn't stretch that far!"

"He raided petty cash."

"Please tell me he at least fed my guinea pigs?" Simon sighed.

Kim looked a little sheepish.

"I think he might have bought them a moccacino," she said.

Simon groaned, then nodded towards the door.

"Look, I've got to get back down below." He said.

"Yeah," Kim said. She gave a little smirk. "I've heard all about you '_down below'_."

With some horror Simon realised that his earlier 'trouser tent' had gone public.

"Shit, what the hell did Gene say?" he closed his eyes.

"Just that you didn't need any additional pegs to keep your tent erect," Kim tried to keep a straight face.

Simon turned to the doorpost and began to knock his head against it.

"_Shit,"_ he breathed.

"Oh come on, it's not that bad," she laughed.

"Your amusement is not helping" Simon accused.

Kim tried to cover her mouth a little.

"Sorry," she mumbled but it did little to hide her laughter.

"Once more, I am going down below – _to the basement!"_ Simon specified, "I am going to the basement. Nothing at all about my trousers of the contents thereof."

"I'm sorry!" Kim called after him but her giggles had turned into guffaws now. "Really, Simon! It happens to every man, I'm sure!"

"Only dead ones, separated from their boyfriend," Simon mumbled.

"I'm sure the Guv is flattered he's a gay icon!" he heard Kim's voice calling down the corridor.

He stormed in embarrassment back to the basement, forgot he'd locked the door, walked into it, hit his head and fell backwards. A string of swear words came from his mouth.

"This is _not_ one of my most dignified days," he mumbled as he unlocked the door and let himself in.

~xXx~

"Come _on,_ there's got to be something around here somewhere."

Alex desperately searched every nook and cranny of the room, but to no avail. She felt so sure there had to be some kind of hidden secret in that room but so far all she had found was a hairdressing magazine, half a _Wham!_ Poster with George Michael's head ripped out and an old cherry flavoured Tune.

"I can't believe these used to come individually wrapped," she said, taking off the wrapper and popping it into her mouth. It might not have been real food but it tasted a darned sight better than the soggy lettuce.

She leaned against the wall, the heat beginning to grow in the room. She was exhausted – she'd turned the room upside down and hadn't found a thing.

"_Alright, Alex. Think,"_ she told herself. She tried to picture the pieces of paper tucked into the empty pizza box back at Keats's house. What had she thought about the night before? Where else could his secrets be hidden? In his office? Well, that was quite possible. There was something to be said for hiding your secrets in plain sight.

But, no. Somehow Keats didn't seem the type. He was too practical for that. Too methodical. He was the kind of person who would have then neatly packed away, out of sight and out of mind. The secrets would be archived along with every other thing he wanted packed tightly away.

_"Make sure you don't do down the wrong staircase and end up in Archiving."_

Keats' one uttered sentence from the previous day came back to her. It had seemed like such a strange thing to say.

"_Archiving?"_ she whispered to herself.

Where the hell would the archives be? It certainly sounded as though they were somewhere in the basement, but a different entrance perhaps. Her heart began to beat a little harder as she thought about it. Had she found it? The place that held his secrets?

Quickly she began to travel up the staircase as quietly as she possibly could. Her eyes darted around. She didn't know the layout of the building very well yet – she'd barely explored anything other than CID and her hot little office, so it was time for as wander. Keeping her eyes peeled for Keats or anyone else who might get in her way she walked as nonchalantly as she could along corridor after corridor, looking for a staircase heading downwards. Finally, after she'd been walking up and down corridors for what felt like several minutes, she came upon it; the door marched _'Archiving'._

"If this isn't it I'll eat my hat," she mumbled, realising she was so hungry she might actually carry out that threat for real. She slowly turned the handle and the door opened. She felt around the wall for a light switch and finally found what she was looking for. With a click one bulb lit up above her, hardly illuminating the staircase. Slowly closing the door behind her she tiptoed down the staircase and reached a second door. This time as she reached out to turn the handle the damn thing wouldn't budge.

"Oh, come _on!"_ she hissed, "this is _my_ psychosis, and my mind is not complicated enough to lock doors!" But try as she might the door wouldn't budge. "Damn it! Damn everything!"

She kicked the wall behind her and gave an angry groan. She'd come so far but suddenly met a dead end. However, that in itself alerted her to the fact that there was more afoot than she'd thought at first. She took a deep breath and thought about the locked door. Would it have been so safely protected if there wasn't something down there to hide, she wondered? Biting her lip she realised that she had most probably found where Jim kept his secrets locked away. With her heart going at an incredible pace she quickly made her way back up the stairs and back through the door, turning off the light as she went.

Thankfully no one was around as she re-emerged from the depths of the staircase. She smoothed down her clothes a little and hurried back to her own slice of the lower levels. Now she knew where she was looking, all she had to do was to figure out how to get down there. Unfortunately with anxiety levels that were reaching epic proportions, hunger pangs tying her stomach in knots and heat that had increased since she'd been out of the room her mind was not in the best state to concentrate and work out how to gain access to the room.

She sank into her chair and closed her eyes for a moment. If she'd come this far, she could succeed in her quest. How she was going to achieve that, however was a different matter.

"I need time," she whispered, "time, some wine, and," she paused and sighed, "and another bloody big pizza. That's all I need. Tonight, I'll think of a way, and tomorrow I'll find what you are keeping hidden from me, Jim. Just you wait."

~xXx~

"_Trouser bloody tent,"_ Simon mumbled as he sank into the chair again. Back in the basement and recovered from his encounter with the door, he knew it was time to get back to his search. His last drawer-hunt had given him a lot to think about. Almost too much. It had revealed to him things that he hadn't even considered, things about the nature of Gene and the station that he was still trying to comprehend. There was still one locked drawer to investigate and it was time to resurrect the prisey-open things.

With a frustrated sigh he got to work, but this drawer opened more easily than the first after only three or four attempts. He breathed a sigh of relief, glad that he had not come close to losing any digits this time, and opened it as far as it would go.

"_Shit!"_ he cried at the sight of Andrew Ridgeley's smiling face staring back at him. He jumped up on the desk as though he'd spotted a mouse running around the room and clutched his hands to his chest. "Oh my god, he has a thousand of these, I swear! What the _hell _did he lock that drawer for? That autograph is all the security he needed! One look at that face and anyone would go running."

He started to feel a little silly about standing on the desk and realised that, if Gene or Kim ventured down at that moment, he would never – _ever_ – be able to talk his way out of that one.

"_I'm just examining the lightbulb…" - _No, that would never wash.

He slowly climbed down, hunted through the tool box, found a pair of piers and used them like tongs to remove the Ridgeley picture from the drawer without having to touch it with his bare hands. With the picture out of the way he finally felt safe enough to sit back in the chair again, even though he could feel movement in his bowels. He wondered whether he still had those diarrhoea tablets around somewhere because of he found any more nasty surprises he would surely be needing them sooner or later.

There were more files and papers in the space below where the picture had been. Simon ran his tongue across his lips as he stared at them. Every drawer so far had revealed a new truth, a different aspect of the world. He wasn't sure he felt ready for another shock to come his way but he knew he had little option but to explore it.

He took out the papers and opened up the first file. As he began to read his expression grew every more confused and increasingly anxious with every page he came upon. Sheet after sheet of words, each more twisted and devastating than the last. There were sentences that Simon had never wanted to read in his life. There were images that he never wanted to hold in his mind. There were descriptions that made him flinch and retch. There were photographs that brought a gasp to his breath and fear to his mind. Every detail, every moment of his descent into darkness and evil, every step on that journey – all played out in typed text from a man who had absorbed the most malevolent of energies and became their very personification.

By the time he reached the end of the file he was left in no doubt of three things. Three absolute certainties;

Number one, that Keats was the most twisted, sickest man that had ever lived.

Number two, that he hadn't started out that way.

And number three, that Gene was responsible. Wholly, definitively, unequivocally responsible in a way he could never, ever have known. A way he couldn't have prevented. A way that was inevitable without changing the very core of his being. His heart and his soul.

"_Oh my god,"_ the words left Simon on a desperate breath, "Gene created him." His eyes closed and he swallowed hard. "This is going to crush him. This is going to crush every part of him."

As he stared at the words in his hands he realised how Sam Tyler felt the day the promotion landed in his lap. He had the information in his hands that could dissolve the evil within Keats forever. But by the same token, it could damage Gene beyond repair. He bit on his lip and trued to hold back tears of anguish and desperation. Had there ever been such a big decision? Had anyone ever been faced with a dilemma so great, so devastating, so overwhelming? Simon didn't know, but if they had they probably hadn't survived it intact.

"Like Sam Tyler," he said quietly.

He saw Gene's bottle of scotch standing on the floor and quickly lifted it. Wiping the rim with his sleeve, he threw back his head and gulped down several mouthfuls of the harsh liquid before coughing and spluttering, choking it down, desperately wishing that the alcohol could take away the power of the words he'd read. He closed his eyes and leaned back in the chair, the weight of the knowledge crushing his chest. He had no one to blame but himself. This was his idea. All his idea. He wanted to find out what changed Keats from a man into a monster and now he had his answer; an answer he would give anything to go back and erase from his memory.

"_Oh God,"_ he whispered, "What the hell am I going to do?"

With those whispered words a twinkling of starlight danced across the ceiling. He had to make his decision fast because time was running out. A sob choked its way out of him as the dilemma bore deep into his soul. This was too much for anyone, too hard a choice for any man to make.

"I want to go home," he whispered. It was a fruitless wish that could never come true, even if he clicked his heels together three times. In the absence of ruby slippers all he could do was to march his feet up the stairs in pursuit of Gene, because either way he'd exhausted his time down in the basement. He couldn't cope with it for a moment longer.

It was time to come up for air – and hopefully with it he could gain some clarity of mind because whatever decision he made, the entire world was riding on it.


	60. Chapter 30, 2011: Allegrissimo

_**A/N: I seem to be ahead again so it's a double dose tonight!**_

**Chapter Thirty: 2011**

Kelly cautiously led Robin and her new acquaintances into her flat.

"Are you sure we will be safe here?" Alex asked nervously.

"I'll tell my flatmates I've got a hot date and need the place to myself," Kelly promised them, "she won't even think about coming home until after she's had a couple of drinks tonight so she won't disturb you in the meanwhile. I can keep her away all night but you'll need to move on in the morning."

"That's fair enough," Robin said quietly.

"Can we put the TV on?" asked Kim, "we need to make sure we keep up to date on how close they are to finding us."

"Of course," said Kelly. She handed Kim the remote and frowned. "Do I know you?"

Kim looked at her.

"I don't know, do you?"

"You seem very familiar," Kelly told her. She paused. "Did you tattoo an elephant on my bottom last year?"

Kim tried to recall but she wasn't sure.

"I tattoo a lot of elephants on bottoms," she said, "it's possible." she looked at the remote in her hands. "Shit, I've got Sky, what channel is BBC News on cable?"

"Hang on, I'll get it up for you," said Kelly, taking the remote back.

Alex looked up in interest. She'd not seen anyone with cable since leaving 1995.

"Do you have Nynex?" she asked.

Kelly looked at her, slightly alarmed.

"Nynex?" she repeated, "what year are _you_ in?"

Silence descended over the entire room. Robin shuffled a little nervously.

"Uh, that's a bit of a sore point," he mumbled.

Luckily the TV brought a distraction to them all as the news appeared on the screen and a picture of a red-haired lady that had been showing for most of the day played again.

"_Today there are calls for a proper investigation into the support behind and execution of undercover operations after the death of a detective who had been –"_

"Hey, I know her," Kim's voice was quiet and awkward.

Robin glanced at her.

"What?"

"That woman," Kim frowned. It felt as though there was a haze around her memory but she felt so sure that she knew that face. "I recognise her from somewhere."

"Where?" asked Robin.

"They've been showing her on the news all day," Alex added.

"I haven't _seen_ any news all day," Kim reminded them, "I've been etching Evan's facial hair onto various appendages!"

Alex balked in horror.

"You've been doing _what?"_ she cried.

"Don't ask," Kim said grimly.

Alex gagged.

"Don't worry, I won't," she said.

"Look, I have to get back to the station," Kelly interrupted, "If I'm gone too long they might start getting suspicious and I don't want to draw attention to you."

"What about Layton?" asked Robin.

Kelly hesitated.

"OK, hang on," she said. She scurried away and returned with a laptop which she opened and switched on. "I'll log you into the system on my login but when I get back to the station and go back online it will boot you, so whatever you want to find, do it fast. When I get to the station I'll search the paperwork and see if there's anything else lurking around that's not on the system. OK?"

Robin flashed her a grateful smile.

"Thank you, Kelly," he said.

"Just try to stay hidden," Kelly advised them.

"That's getting to be a habit," Alex commented.

Kelly gave them a nervous wave, then slipped out of the door, leaving them alone again.

"Fucking hell," Robin sighed as he leaned back against the couch, "how can this situation possibly get any worse?"

"And why are we all sitting on the floor?" asked Kim.

Alex wasn't sure.

"We are shunning the cultural restraints of furniture," she guessed.

Robin took charge of the laptop. He glanced at Alex.

"I think maybe I should do the searching this time," he told her.

Alex bit her lip a little guiltily, glanced at Kim and could almost see horrific insertions floating before her eyes.

"That's probably a good idea," she mumbled.

As Robin began to search through the database Alex couldn't help but noticed Kim's eyes were still firmly trained on the TV screen. She seemed distant and slightly awkward. As much as Alex wanted to ask Kim if she was OK she didn't want to press her too much.

"Alright, Arthur Layton," Robin began, scanning the screen, "well, he certainly hasn't led a quiet life, has he?"

"I got that impression," said Alex, "all I recall of him was from a long time ago, nothing to do with whatever happened to me here, but he seemed like a busy man."

"Right, let's go back to your shooting," Robin looked down the information, "in the days and weeks afterwards there were hundreds of reports placing him around the scene of the crime but few with a location that followed. There were a few reports that he'd travelled to the continent about six months after he shot you… apparently those came to nothing. A sighting in the north, two down on the south coast, but nothing confirmed. Then last year…" he paused as he clicked through a few files, "last year when Keats tried to end your life in hospital," he felt himself choking up a little, "well, that brought your shooting back into the public eye and some new information on Layton came to light but he was still never found."

"We're looking for a needle in a haystack," sighed Kim, "this guy's been hidden for two and a half years. He's not going to come to light now, just because we want to find him."

"Then in January," Robin continued to read, undeterred, "when Alex woke up she was in the news again and there were some fresh sighting of him." He frowned, "this time some were from the local area. There were some around Stratford, then some around the Greenwich area, and then…" he hesitated.

"What?" Alex whispered.

"There have been some in Fenchurch," Robin said quietly.

Alex's eyes opened wide.

"He's been back here?" she whispered.

Robin's face turned ashen.

"Shit," he breathed.

Kim looked at him nervously.

"That doesn't sound good," she whispered. She looked at the screen and tried to find the words that had left Robin staring in silence. "Oh God," she whispered, "he's been seen on Bridge Street."

Alex frowned. The name rang a bell but she couldn't place it.

"Where -?"

Robin swallowed. She saw his adam's apple rise and fall.

"That's where the Falcon Building is," he whispered.

"Keats's flat," Kim whispered.

An icy fear filled Alex's heart while her chest and face flushed with heat. She felt as though she was burning up, burning with fear and realisation.

"Layton went to see Keats?" she whispered.

"Keats was long dead by then," Robin reminded her, "It would have been all over the news."

"So why else would he be around that place?" Kim asked.

"Because he knew Keats _wasn't_ there," said Alex. It was a statement rather than a question. "He knew the place was empty."

"And not a place anyone wanted to go," added Robin, "well, no one _normal_, anyway."

"But just the kind of place Layton could hide away, undisturbed," Alex whispered.

Robin hesitated. He shook his head.

"No, this is stupid," he said, "there was no sign of Layton having been there when we went yesterday."

"But remember the state of the place?" Alex reminded him, "we only went in the bedroom, we left the lounge as fast as we could. We knew there were probably Ridgeley pictures in there. And it stank of urine."

"It was in such a state there's no way anyone would want to stay there," Robin reminded her.

"Who says he stays there all the time?" Alex reminded him, "he probably has to move around a lot. But if he's been drawn back here by my awakening… maybe to follow up on whatever he tried to kill me for originally, then he'll need places to hide. Places no one would ever think of looking."

Robin bit his lip. He hated the idea she was right but two things struck him.

"The power was on," he whispered.

"What?"

"In Keats's flat," he continued, "the electricity was still on." He glanced at Alex. "squatters take such liberties these days. Remember the one in Simon's flat?"

Alex nodded slowly.

"Someone's been in there, haven't they?" she whispered, "Layton or not, someone's been in there."

"And," Robin's voice trembled, "the doorway. That board. It came away too easily."

Alex nodded slowly.

"I noticed that too," she whispered.

"Someone must need to get in and out," Robin continued.

Neither of them liked where their thoughts were leading.

"If he's been there," Alex whispered, "then who knows what we could find?"

"Why didn't you find anything of his earlier?" asked Kim.

"Because we weren't looking for it," Robin said grimly. He looked at Alex. "Does this mean we are going to have to go back there?" Alex's silent expression told him all he needed to know. "Oh _no, no, no,_ once was enough!"

"Robin, we've _got_ to," said Alex, "we were so busy looking for Keats that we overlooked anything else. Now we have to go back with a fresh pair of eyes. Maybe we'll even find the man of the moment."

"Oh God," Robin sighed.

Alex bit her lip.

"Maybe we can get your other shoe back?" she offered.

Robin hesitated.

"Keep talking," he said.

Kim interrupted with a sigh.

"If he was there you would have noticed something," she said.

"It was dark, Kim," Robin told her, "dark, and grim. The bedroom was more or less untouched and that's where we based ourselves. There could have been anything going on in the lounge. Including a squatting Layton."

"You make it sound like he was going to the toilet," frowned Alex.

"With the smell of the place there's no guarantee he wasn't," Robin pointed out.

"And there was all that Andrew Ridgeley stuff you found…" Alex added.

"OK, stop!" cried Kim, "that's enough! My stomach's still upset after the Evan's Beard tattoos. I don't want to hear about Ridgeley too!"

Robin sighed and looked back at the screen.

"I'll keep looking through the files until we get booted," he said.

Alex nodded and pretended she knew what 'being booted' meant. She assumed it involved getting kicked in the arse, but she wasn't sure.

"We have to find him," she said quietly, "if he'd back in the area then it has to be for a reason and the catalyst was me waking up. Whatever he had over Evan, perhaps he's trying to get to him again."

"Then if he is, we'll find him first," Robin told her, "and we'll find out exactly what's going on."

Alex exhaled and leaned back against the sofa. She stared at the screen as some newsreader jabbered on about protocols safeguarding detectives on undercover cases and let her mind slip away. She knew finding Layton and discovering what he had on Evan were only steps along the road. Ultimately she still needed to find a way to get home. She only hoped and prayed that, whatever truth the man held, it would somehow lead to that one-way journey back. She needed Gene and she needed her life.

As she stared at the ceiling a strange shudder travelled down her arms as the paintwork seemed to darken just for a moment and a tiny twinkling of starlight shone overhead. She took a sharp intake of breath and her hand reached out to squeeze Robin's arm instinctively.

Robin glanced around.

"What's the matter, Alex?" he asked. He frowned as he saw her expression. "Are you OK?"

Alex wasn't certain. She bit her lip as the starlight disappeared and the bright, white ceiling returned above her. She swallowed and tried to speak but the shock stole the words from her. Eventually she gave him a crooked smile.

"Sorry," she whispered, "must be nerves."

Robin gave her a sympathetic smile and turned back to the screen. Inside her, Alex began to feel a deep churning, as though all her emotions had gone into a spin-cycle. The meaning of the starlight was long forgotten in the gaps that her memory still needed to fill, but there was an instinct she couldn't ignore. A little voice inside her mind that told her this was not where she belonged.

_My time is running out,_ she thought.

She was on a countdown now. Somehow, life or death awaited. She just prayed that - either way - she would end up on the right side of the line.


	61. Chapter 30, 1995: Bocca Chiusa

**A/N: The second of 2 chapters tonight!**

**Chapter Thirty: 1995**

Simon stumbled up the stairs, his mind hazy from the heat, the drink and the text he'd read. His head felt like it was about to explode with all he'd taken in. He wasn't ready to deal with it yet. He needed time to let the words sink in. He needed time to process everything he had learnt. He felt shaken right to his very core.

The walk to CID felt as though it took forever. He arrived to find Kim and Gene with a white-board brainstorm on the go and Keats's Nailer files spread all over the desks. Gene glanced up as he saw Simon enter.

"Shoebury," he began, "have you met my new Detective Sergeant? Her dress sense leaves a lot to be desired and we strained the tea through 'er face earlier but she seems to have potential."

Simon didn't even give a smile or a comment. He walked across silently and slipped into a chair. He felt as though he'd been struck dumb by all he'd read.

"Simon? Everything OK? Earth to Jumper-Land?" Kim tried.

Finally Simon gave a response, but it wasn't the response either of them had been expecting.

"Shit, I left my jumper locked in the basement," he mumbled. Coming out of the hot room had left him feeling chilly and he shivered a little.

"Perfect place for it," said Gene, "now there are two evil beings that have inhabited that room."

Even this didn't raise a comment from Simon.

"Simon, what is it?" Kim asked quietly, "what's happened?"

"You found something," Gene said flatly, "Didn't you?"

Simon wasn't ready to talk about it yet. Not by a longshot.

"No," he sighed, his hand rose to his forehead, "I didn't. I didn't find anything at all."

"At least you tried," Kim said gently, "that's all you can do."

Gene sniffed the air. He looked at Simon's slightly pie-eyed expression.

"You've been drinking," he said.

"So?" Simon said crossly, "What are you, my _father?"_

"I'll tell you who I am, I'm the man who's going to give you a black eye if you ever talk to me like that again," Gene threatened.

Simon closed his eyes for a moment and took in a deep breath.

"I'm sorry," he mumbled, "I'm just hot and fed up. Wasted my time."

"Well if it's any consolation we've not found much of any use here either," said Kim, "it's fairly straightforward. Looks like Keats and Nailer became buddy-pals when he helped him break out of Fenchurch West and gave him bed and breakfast. Now, while Nailer's awaiting trial, Keats has taken over some of his business dealings. We still have no clue about Layton and the clean-up list though. Looks like the bomb is the only possibility we have but it doesn't look like he's been '_swept away' _yet."

Gene stared at Simon. He didn't like the look on his face.

"Oi, Shoebury," he frowned, "stop modelling yer face on an arse and get yer coat on. It's time to give Jimbo and Drake a fine sending off after a long day at work."

Simon looked at him in confusion.

"What do you mean?"

"Almost chucking out time in the hot house," Gene said, pulling his jacket on, "call me crazy but I feel like keeping an eye on the horned one."

"Oh Gene, _no_, not another stake out," Simon sighed.

"We're not staking them out, just escorting them home," said Gene.

"Oh, _God…"_

"Look," Gene began crossly, "He took Alex to 'is country house last night and disappeared back to his Ridgeley shrine after that. We raided that place this morning and we weren't as careful as Nailer at cleaning up. If he takes Alex back there to show her his Wham collection and finds we've been there she could end up on the wrong side of his temper."

Simon froze.

"Didn't think of that," he said quietly.

"That's because you've had yer brain in the basement," said Gene. He pulled on his coat and looked back at them. "Are you coming for a fun field trip to the wild West or not?"

"Yes, Guv," Simon mumbled, dragging himself back to his feet and following Gene and Kim to the door. He kept his eyes downward. Knowledge was a burden indeed, and one that he wasn't ready for.

~xXx~

"Guv?"

Gene glanced in the rear view mirror to see Kim looking uncomfortable in the back seat.

"You should have gone before we came out," he told her.

"What-? _Ew!_ No!" Kim frowned, "just because you practically burst your bladder this afternoon doesn't mean we've all been drowning in lattes!" She sighed and put her head in her hands. "God, I'm _talking_ like you now." She took a deep breath, attempted to clear the Genealike fog from her brain and tried again. "No, what I wanted to say was…" she paused, "does anything look familiar to you?"

"Aside from your metal face?" asked Gene. "No. Why?"

"Haven't you noticed?" she nodded toward the front of Fenchurch West where some scaffolding had been erected since the night before. A couple of workers were busily affixing a new frontage to the main entrance. It had a very definite and striking appearance.

"You're right," Gene scowled, "why have they bloody nicked the front of our station?"

"If they wanted a new look they should have waited a few months and applied for Changing Rooms," Simon mumbled, folding his arms.

"Jim will do anything to be like you," Kim told Gene quietly.

Gene gave her a dirty look.

"Do you have to call him 'Jim'?" he frowned. Kim blushed with shame and mortification. She hadn't even realised she'd done it. "Call him Keats. Or bastard. Or arse-face. Or shit-for-brains. Or Andrew Ridgeley."

Simon's stomach lurched and his face developed a pained expression as he gulped back bile. It took him a few moments to feel sure he wasn't going to cause an environmental disaster over the dashboard.

"God, Gene!" he cried.

Gene glanced at him.

"You're looking green around the gills," he said.

Simon glanced down.

"You drive like that to break the land speed record getting to Fenchurch West and then talk about Andrew Ridgeley; of _course _I'm going to look like that."

Gene stared at him.

"What did you find, Shoebury?"

Simon swallowed.

"What do you mean?"

"You haven't looked me in the eye since you came up from the basement," Gene told him, "whatever it was, must be bad." Simon didn't respond. "What was it? Not another tape? What d'you find this time? I don't remember giving someone a bloody nose for quoting chapter and verse of the X Files at me, so it can't be a nerdophobic tape." He stared at Simon who didn't move. "Of course, there's always a first time…"

Simon closed his eyes just for a second. He breathed in deeply and tried to find a way out of the interrogation. He wasn't ready yet. He took a deep breath and tried to keep his expression neutral.

"I'm sorry I drank your scotch," he said quietly.

Gene looked at him.

"Is that what this is all about?" he asked. It seemed ridiculous but this _was_ Simon, so it was quite possible. "Jesus, Shoebury, you've had me thinking Keats had some kind of dubious porno movie of me in his drawers!" he paused and drowned. "I mean in his _desk_ drawers, not me, rummaging in _his…"_

"Yes, we get the picture," Simon covered his face in embarrassment, "_Thank_ you."

"You're not getting another trouser tent, are you?" Kim enquired politely from the back seat."

Simon spun around crossly.

"You wait, Kim," he hissed, "you wait until all this is over and we finally get home. Red Dwarf marathon for you. Back-to-back episodes. Eighteen hours' worth. Think yourself lucky series seven won't be made for another year or so."

"He_ is_ getting a bloody trouser tent," Gene backed away slightly.

"I am bloody not!" Simon cried, "my trousers are hanging all wrong!" for a moment he forgot where he was., stood up to adjust them, hit his head hard on the roof of the car and fell back in the seat with a yelp. He felt two pairs of eyes fixed upon him and desperately prayed for the ground to open up and swallow him. Had there ever been a more mortifying day than this? He didn't think so. Luckily a sweet distraction came just at the right moment to take the emphasis away from his alleged _downstairs camping paraphernalia_ and his second knock to the head of the day. "Hey, isn't that them?" He pointed with one hand while he rubbed his head with the other, "Look, in that taxi."

"A bloody taxi?" Gene frowned. He watched the cab leaving the grounds with two figures in the back. He recognised the back of Keats's head and hair that was very distinctively the new style Alex has adopted the day before.

"Where's his car?" frowned Kim.

"Fish in the engine?" Gene suggested, "I don't bloody know but a poncy taxi isn't going to throw us off the scent. Hold onto yer guts, Shoebury, I don't want you spraying second-hand scotch all over my car."

Simon gagged at the suggestion and closed his eyes for a second as Gene began to pull away from the road and take pursuit of the taxi. The nausea that Gene's road skills brought to him at least distracted him from the words he'd read for a few moments. He knew he couldn't keep the secret for long., He had to make a choice and he had to act fast. The stars he'd seen only served to remind him of that. He swallowed and gripped the seat as Gene took them on a wild Keats chase.

"Why me?" he murmured.

~xXx~

_# …We all need a love resurrection _

_Just a little divine intervention _

_We all need a love resurrection _

_Just a little divine intervention… #_

Keats glanced at Alex as the radio in the taxi read his thoughts. She'd seemed strange to him for most of the day. This was not the behaviour he'd expected after their moment of passion the day before.

'_**But then again, she didn't have a lot of choice in the matter, did she?**_

The voice in his head spoke up loudly now and then. It was almost unbearably vocal. He'd been fighting it down since the early hours of the morning. He couldn't understand what it was jabbering about. Of _course_ she'd had a choice. Did she tell him to stop? No. Did she try to fight it? Of course not.

He recalled the look in her eyes as she had watched him through the deep red wine and the candlelight two nights earlier. The playful smile, her hair twirled around her fingers, the fluttering of her eyelashes.

_She wanted me. She bloody wanted everything I gave her._

That look wasn't there now. He tried to catch her eye but her expression was absent and preoccupied. Her eyes looked as empty as her stomach sounded, rumbling away in the seat beside him. He bit his lip a little. Perhaps he'd been pushing the diet a step too far. Was _that_ behind her coldness? He couldn't understand why. He was only trying to make the best of her.

_Just like she used to be._

'_**Just like the one you REALLY wanted.'**_

Keats blinked firmly and shook his head a little to shut out the voice. He listened instead to the end of the song on the radio.

_# …Show me one direction _

_I will not question again _

_For a warm injection _

_Is all I need to calm the pain… #_

He allowed himself a little smirk as he glanced at the beautiful woman beside him. Oh, he'd given her a warm injection alright. He could quite go for another one. He looked at her again; looked past the blank look and the cold eyes. He reached out and gently brushed the side of her hair back from her face. He thought she turned a little further away from him but he couldn't be sure.

_# …We all need a love resurrection _

_Just a little divine intervention _

_We all need a love resurrection _

_Just a little divine intervention… #_

As the end of the music played he leaned a little closer to her and ran his tongue around his lips. He'd get that look back. He knew he could do it. He'd pick up some wine and catch her in his gaze. She would be putty in his hands once again. Putty; pliable, maleable, soft. Just the way he wanted her.

"…_Hey, welcome back!" _the DJ spoke over the end of the track, "_and you're joining us as we talk to our latest winner in our Alison Moyet giveaway!"_

Keats's brow furrowed. He hadn't realised that was who he was listening to again. He hated her even more after that morning's little incident.

"Crappy bloody radio station," he mumbled.

He saw Alex's eyes turn to him for a second and he thought she gave a huff of disapproval but he couldn't be sure.

"…_And we have on the line right now this hour's first winner – it's Lindsay from Fenchurch! Hello, Lindsay!"_

An excitable scream came down the radio.

"_Woooo! Hello!"_

"_Lindsay, where are you calling us from today?"_

"_I'm calling from work,"_ the voice said a little nervously, _"I probably shouldn't be doing this but my boss left early, so…"_

"_Well, we're glad to have you and congratulations!" _the DJ told her, "_Stay on the line so we can take your details and we have another hot hit coming up after these ads!"_

An advertisement for some kind of piano-eating contest started and Keats started down at his throbbing toe. The pain hadn't let up all day. He hadn't been brave enough to take off his shoe or sock yet. He didn't want to see what kind of state his digit was in. While it was hidden away it could still just be a bit bruised. As soon as he saw it, he'd know for sure that it was busted up good and proper. It was a bit like the Schrödinger's Cat theory.

_Schrödinger's Toe,_ he thought to himself.

Alex gave him a sideways glance, aware she'd said nothing on the journey so far. She knew that at some point she was going to have to speak and she had to cover up for her anxieties and suspicions. She knew that she was going to have to plaster that smile across her face again and head to the land of make believe, to offer him a look that said all was fine and dandy. It wasn't going to be easy to do.

The radio coughed and spluttered and a serious voice interrupted the advert playing through the car as though the station had changed suddenly. It made the hairs on the back of Alex's neck stand up on end as she listened to the words.

"…_today as an investigation went horrifically wrong. Thirty-two year old Detective Inspector Victoria Stone had been involved in an –"_

Alex's eyes bolted and she turned to Keats, whose expression showed no change, no surprise, no shock. Could he even hear it?

"…_undercover operation when an ambulance was called to the home of…"_

A loud fizzing, buzzing noise interrupted Alex's listening and she gave a frustrated gasp. She desperately wanted to hear what more the newsreader had to say but the previous radio station broke back through and the inane DJ's waffling played again. Alex reached forward as though to try to adjust the station over the back of the seat but Keats mistook her movement for something more intimate and reached out to take her hand instead.

"You did well today, Alex."

She turned to him with a thin smile on her lips, covering up for the wretchedness she felt inside. She blinked a few times and forced herself to respond.

"I did?" she cleared her throat. "I didn't seem to get very much done.

"Nonsense, just your presence in the station is making a difference." Keats removed his glasses and slipped them into his pocket. His naked eyes turned to her. There was nothing to hold back his hypnotic gaze now. "You only have to walk through that office and the others scurry around like honey bees. They're got all lot to live up to now, Alex. They know that." He leaned forward and she felt herself swallow hard. Inside she was already getting those butterflies again. She hated them. She willed them to go away, but as he squeezed her hand and fixed her with his stare she found it harder and harder to fight him. "You've set the standard at Fenchurch West. Never forget that. You're the marker. That's what they've got to try to reach for." His smile grew broad. "But they'll never quite manage it, because they're not _you."_

Alex gave another thin smile. Her hand was trembling. She hoped he didn't notice.

"…_and just before the commercial break you heard Lindsay from Fenchurch picking up one or our awesome prizes! But… what's that…. Could it be a back-to-back giveaway?" _the DJ asked, _"Oh my!"_

Keats felt his heckles go up as some familiar notes began to play.

_# …When she said that you were through_

_I thought that there was nothing that I could do_

_Just because she ran right here_

_Doesn't mean I interfered_

_Now I'm wondering if we can feel the same… #_

"Can't you turn that crap off?" he barked angrily at the taxi driver.

The driver glanced back at him.

"Just some music to make the journey go faster," he said.

"If you don't switch that thing off I'll be using my _fist_ to make the journey go faster!" Keats threatened. As soon as he'd said those words he glanced a little guiltily at Alex. He hadn't meant to say that - didn't even know where that had come from. He gave a nervous laugh and leaned back a little. "Just want some peace and quiet to talk, that's all," he said sheepishly.

The driver eyed him in the rear view mirror.

"You only had to ask politely," he said and switched the radio off.

Keats took a deep breath. Her watched at Alex and knew he had some backtracking to do. With the death of the radio the only sounds now were the drone of the engine and the roar of Alex's stomach. A tiny pang of guilt crept into Keats's mind from somewhere. He gave a cough.

"Alex," he said a little nervously, "I hope you don't think I've been a little too hard on you."

Alex felt a strange sense of nervousness with those words.

"In what way?" she asked quietly.

"About your diet," he began, "It's just… I've seen you. I _know_ you. _This…."_ He indicated her body, "this isn't you. Not the _you_ I knew."

'_**The Alex you wanted.'**_

Keats shut his eyes firmly for a second to push the voice away.

_The Alex I HAD; _he corrected, _I had her. I wanted her and I HAD her._

'_**But DID you?'**_

Keats felt himself starting to perspire. He licked his lips nervously and pulled his collar away from his neck. His brain was arguing with him now.

_I had her. I had her right there, in the basement. She was hot. She was on fire._

'_**Who did she want, Jim?'**_

_Me!_ Keats took a deep breath, _She wanted me!_

'_**But whose name did she say?**_

He couldn't block her voice from playing through his head.

"…_Gene…"_

"_Hunt!"_ he screamed out suddenly, "Bloody Hunt!" He realised her eyes were on him and he gave a nervous laugh, "I meant, Hunt…well, he never wanted you to make the best of yourself, Alex. Never wanted to push you. I mean…" his demeanour changed as his hand rose to her hair and he gentle brushed it with his fingers, "look at the state you were in when you arrived here. The brassy hair, your body all out of shape, clothes that wouldn't have looked out of place decorating the walls of the Big Breakfast house. And now see?" his fingers traced a line from the top of her head, down her soft hair and onto her cheek which made her swallow nervously. They travelled down to her chin before finally leaving her alone. "Your beautiful hair, the clothes you deserve. You're coming back together, Alex. Piece by piece, you're getting there."

Alex's smile was strained. She had to stay strong. Couldn't let those eyes suck her in again. She swallowed hard and tried to think of something to say.

"Sometimes you don't make me feel very beautiful." She tried to speak out strongly but her voice was weak from nervousness.

There was something in his eye as she spoke. She hadn't seen it before. It was only there for a split second, like a touch of remorse or a moment of regret. For just a split second he flinched as though someone had kicked him hard in the stomach but almost instantly that look vanished and his gaze fixed her again.

"Like I said," he continued, "we still have work to do. But we're getting there."

Alex felt her lips go dry as he stared at her. She wanted to moisten them with her tongue but didn't want him to read that as some kind of sexual gesture. She felt a strange panic growing inside of her. If she didn't find a way to extract the truth about him soon then she was going to go under, drowning in his stare again.

To her blessed relief the taxi pulled to a halt outside the now familiar house and she immediately stumbled out, her heart thumping in her chest. She started to walk toward the door but Keats called her back.

"_Alex!"_

She stopped and turned around.

"Yes?"

"Wait for me to pay the man. I'll be right with you."

Alex felt a sudden thud as her heart went into overdrive with anxiety.

"Why are you paying him?" she asked quickly, "You need him to take you home, don't you?"

Keats walked up to her, with that smile upon his face. _That_ smile. The one usually accompanied by _that_ gaze.

"I thought you might like some company tonight," he told her as one finger strayed to the side of her face, "it's a big place for someone as beautiful as you to sit around all on her own." He paused, "stop you from giving into the temptation of the local Pizza Hut too."

Alex stared at him. The stare began to border on a glare. The spell was wavering now. She swallowed as she tried to work out what to do or what to say. Whatever that was going to be, she had to decide fast.

She drew in a deep breath and drew in something else alongside it: courage. She closed her eyes for a split second and called upon every ounce of strength in her body. It was Keats-booty-fake-out time.

Laying her fingers on his shoulders, she put on a smile. It was a mask; a mask made of flesh but a mask none the less. Like a prop from a play.

"Listen," she began, catching his eye while keeping enough of a barrier to stop his gaze from fixing hers, "I'm exhausted, Jim. I'm so tired today. I've only been out of hospital a little while and I had a big day trying to get to grips with work… I'm sure you understand, I just want to get in bed. And go to sleep," she added quickly before he could get any ideas, "because," she hated herself for doing it but she put on a coquettish smile and leaned in close, "the better I sleep tonight, the more energy I'll have tomorrow."

Keats raised an eyebrow. He wasn't used to being looked at that way. At least not without laden air behind it.

"And what's happening tomorrow?" he asked.

Alex leaned in closer.

"Anything you like," she whispered.

She closed her eyes and leaned towards him. She forced back a shudder as she pressed her lips against his.

_Think of something… think of anything… just to get through this moment,_ she told herself. _Think of going home. Getting back to Molly. Think of finding the truth. Think of someone you'd rather be kissing. Think of Russell Brand…_

And that worked for all of a second until she recalled her rather nasty dream involving said comedian and Layton in a compromising position from a couple of weeks earlier and almost gagged.

She drew back and forced a smile.

"Good night, Jim. See you tomorrow."

She noticed a different expression on his face as he stared back at her. It was softer, warm and enchanted. For a moment she felt a little guilty. It was the expression of someone whose love had been requited. Her smile was guilty and laden with intent as she waved him goodbye and turned to the door.

~xXx~

"Pencil-necked _bastard!"_ Gene cried, slamming his fists on the dash board.

"_She_ kissed _him!"_ Kim pointed out.

"You're not helping matters, Stringer!" Gene told her crossly, "you can play musical desks again if you want!"

"Gene, there's not much you can do about it," Simon told him, "just calm down. He's not going in with her, so leave it."

Gene tightened his expression into one of resolve.

"Fine," he said, "let's go home then." He paused as he started the engine, "after one brief detour."

Without another word he spun the steering wheel around and moved at speed toward Keats.

"_What the hell do you think you're doing?"_ cried Simon.

A few careful manoeuvres later and Simon got his answer as Gene circled Keats twice and ran over his bad toe.

"_Yeeeeoooooooowwwwwwwww!"_ he screamed. In a flurry of pain it took him several moments to realise what had happened but the car seemed awfully familiar. _"Hunt! You lard-arsed bastard, I'm going to get you for that!"_

Gene reversed and pulled up beside him, giving him a sense of fear that his good foot might receive the same treatment. He leaned out of the window and smirked,

"You look hopping mad, Jimbo," before stepping on the accelerator and speeding away.

Keats screamed out at the top of his lungs as Gene disappeared into the distance. So Hunt was on his tail, was he? Well, he hoped he'd gotten a bloody good eyeful. Because Alex had kissed him. _Alex_ had _kissed HIM!_ Ha! _Keats one, Hunt nil!_

"You see!" he screamed to no one in particular, "No alcohol, no drugs, no gas and air! She wants me! She bloody wants me!"

"Very happy for you sir, but either you pay me, or get back in, or I drive over your _other_ foot," the annoyed taxi driver told him.

Keats had almost forgotten about the cab. Looking slightly annoyed at his tirade of victory being interrupted, he climbed into the back seat and leaned back with a sigh.

_She wants me. You see? She wanted me all along!_

'_**But she's not the one YOU want...'**_

The voice wouldn't even let him enjoy his one moment of glory.

'…_**Is she? Not really.'**_

Keats ignored it, leaned back further and closed his eyes. He had one delicious moment to treasure that night, and the next day it would become something far greater – he was on a promise. Even the dulcet tones of Alison Moyet couldn't distract him from his glorious thoughts or the trouser tent he'd developed.

Tomorrow.

_Tomorrow is going to be one hell of a day,_ he thought to himself.

As it turned out, he was right about that. Just not in the way he anticipated.


	62. Chapter 31, 2011: Retenu

_**A/N: And one more double dose tonight – two shorter chapters before it's back to single (and rather long) chapters the next couple of days!**_

**Chapter Thirty One: 2011**

Alex walked slowly into the lounge and sank down on the couch. She lifted her top and studied her tattoo. She'd washed and dried it as per Kim's instructions but she had one little problem.

"I forgot my tattoo gunk," she said.

"Oh, that's OK, I've got some in the car," Kim told her. She got to her feet and felt in her pocket for the keys. "I'll go and get it."

"Thanks Kim," Alex said gratefully. She leaned back and turned up the volume on the news as Robin came back in the room from the kitchen and sank down beside her.

"You doing OK?" he asked her quietly.

Alex glanced up and gave a little smile.

"I'm getting tired," she whispered.

Robin nodded slowly.

"You look pale," he said quietly.

Alex wasn't sure what the matter was but she was beginning to feel unwell. She'd pushed herself to the limit from the moment she ran away from Evan and had been running on adrenaline but it felt as though she'd pushed herself a little too far. Her limbs felt heavy and her head was swimming a little.

"I'm feeling off colour," she said quietly.

Robin leaned against her slightly.

"Dinner will help," he said, "Kelly's got a ton of food. I'm thinking pasta."

Alex gave a tired smile.

"That's the first thing you do when you go into someone's home, isn't it?" she asked.

"What?"

"Check their kitchen cupboards to see what you can make."

Robin gave a gentle laugh.

"Better than checking their bathroom cabinet for condoms and pile cream," he said.

They fell silent and watched the news for a few minutes.

"It's such a relief not to see Evan's beard appearing every few minutes," Alex remarked.

The newsreader finished sharing a light-hearted report about the increasing number of people who fall on their arse in front of TV cameras in the icy weather before becoming solemn again.

"And now back to our main story today," she continued, "in the early hours of this morning police arrested a known drug baron with much of the capital under his control. After evading police for the last two decades his arrest finally came this morning after an ambulance was called to his London home. A nine-nine-nine call requesting medical attention described a thirty-two year old female as being unresponsive. Ambulance crews tried for some time to revive the woman, an undercover detective who had infiltrated his inner circle, but she was pronounced dead on arrival to hospital this morning. The incident has brought attention to the lack of support and safety protocols behind undercover operations generally and an inquiry is being launched…"

"Here," Kim's hand appeared in front of Alex with more tattoo gunk.

"Thanks, Kim," Alex said with a smile.

As she began to apply some to help her body art in the healing process the door opened which made all three of them jump.

"It's OK, it's just me," Kelly's voice called out.

Robin gave a sigh of relief.

"Kelly," he breathed, "thank God."

Kelly arrived in the doorway, a pile of papers in her hands.

"These have got to go back in the morning," she said firmly, "otherwise someone's going to get suspicious."

"What are they?" asked Alex.

"Everything I could find on Layton and Keats," Kelly explained, "you'll be particularly interested in this part."

She tossed the pile onto the coffee table and took one folder from the top. Sandwiching herself between Robin and Alex, making Alex slightly annoyed as her tattoo gunk went all over the place, she opened the folder and took out some sheets.

"What is it?" asked Robin.

"In the aftermath of Alex being shot there were a ton of interviews," Kelly explained, "both sides of the coin. Friends, colleagues… enemies, collars…" she pointed to a piece of paper, "including Evan White."

"This is all fairly standard procedure," Alex said as she took the sheet of paper and started to scan it.

"Not asking these questions, it's not," said Kelly.

Alex realised she had the transcript of an interview and as she read on her brow began to furrow.

"I don't understand this," she said.

"What is it?" asked Robin.

"Why are they asking about Tim and Caroline Price?"

"Your parents?" said Kelly.

Alex froze. It felt for all the world as though the sofa had collapsed beneath her and she was hurtling out of control through a hole in the floor, rather like Robin's shoe had that morning.

"What?" she whispered.

"Your parents," Kelly said again. Alex's blank looked confused her. "Evan White used to work with them. That's why they asked him to be your godfather, I presume."

Alex swallowed and felt her heart beating faster.

"Uh," she struggled for words. She had recalled the Prices but only as people she'd encountered in 1981, shortly after she arrived at Fenchurch East. "The car bomb," she whispered.

Kelly felt a little awkward. She wondered if she should have even mentioned it.

"Alex?" The distant look on Alex's face made her anxious, "are you OK? I didn't mean to bring it up… didn't mean to trigger anything…"

"Alex?" her silence was making Robin worry too. He slipped an arm around her shoulders, "what happened?"

"I, um," Alex felt tears coming to her eyes. She remembered the car bomb now.; She remembered the Prices being blown sky high. She remembered the little girl with the red balloon. The little girl who…

…the little girl who shared her name.

"It was me," she breathed.

"What was?" Robin asked gently.

She remembered Gene carrying the girl through Fenchurch East, Evan asking for help in receiving custody, Layton…

"The bomb," Alex whispered.

"What?"

"Layton made the bomb."

"What bomb?"

"The one that killed the –" she paused and swallowed, "my parents." She choked a little on those words. She had no recall of her life in this world. Tim and Caroline no more felt her parents than Zig and Zag did, but the memory of the explosion and understanding now that she was born of their genes shocked her into tears. "The car bomb," she started again, "Layton built it."

Kelly frowned.

"How do you know?" she asked, "I checked that file. Their killer was never found."

"Layton only did the lackey work," Alex whispered, "He was asked to do it. He didn't _want_ to kill them. He was just an accessory."

"And Evan?" asked Robin, "do you remember his connection?"

Alex put her hand to her head. Things were still so fuzzy.

"He was there," she whispered, "when it happened…" she shook her head slowly, "but I can't remember anything more than that."

"Well you were only young at the time," said Kelly.

"What?" frowned Alex. She realised Kelly was imagining her as the young Alex, not the thirty-something DI who had tried so hard to stop it from happening. And now she understood why. "Oh…" she shook her head a little, "yes. Of course. I just wish…" she closed her eyes and sighed. "I wish I understood the connection. Because now we have a firm link between Layton and Evan." She shook her head again. "Why didn't I remember before?"

"You've still got gaps, Alex," Robin said gently.

Alex sighed in frustration.

"And don't I know it?" she whispered.

"Listen… _Kelly?"_ Kim wasn't sure if she had her name right.

"Yeah?"

"We found some stuff of our own earlier on," Kim explained, "Some of the latest sightings for Layton. They're local."

"They are?"

"Too local," Robin added.

Alex nodded grimly.

"Looks like he may have been using Keats's flat as temporary accommodation," she said quietly.

"What?"

"We don't know for certain," Robin was fast to say, "We saw no sign of him earlier."

"But it _was_ dark and we weren't looking for him," Alex pointed out.

"Which is why we all get to go on another fun field trip to the Falcon Building tonight," Kim said.

"And hopefully reclaim my shoe in the process," Robin concluded.

Kelly looked dubious.

"I'm not sure about this," she said quietly, "wasn't going there once dangerous enough?"

"We have to try," Alex told her. She closed her eyes as a dizzy feeling overtook her. "I don't think I have a lot of time left."

One look at her told Robin she wasn't talking about her time before someone tracked them down. He felt alarmed by her pale skin. Something really wasn't right.

"Maybe you should lay down," he said quietly.

"I'm fine, Robin," she whispered.

"Maybe we all should," Kim began, "If we're going on another before-dawn trip then we could do with some sleep. It's not like we got any last night."

"True," Alex said quietly.

"It's only half six," Kelly frowned.

"And at that time this morning we were already on our way _home,_" said Kim.

"I was going to cook pasta," Robin told them, "We could have something to eat, then go to bed at eight, get in eight hours before we've got to get up again, then we can be dressed, fed and ready by half four."

"Half four?" cried Kelly, "I don't remember agreeing to this!"

Robin looked at her a little surprised,

"Well, you're not going," he said.

Kelly gave a sigh.

"Aren't I?" she said. She rubbed her temples. "Curiosity has got the better of me, Robin."

Robin looked at her dubiously.

"Kel, are you sure? It's a lot to ask."

"You didn't ask," she said, "It's my choice."

"It's not pretty," Alex said quietly.

"Neither was Keats," said Kelly.

Her joke broke a little of the tension in the room. Although no one laughed or smiled it lessened the dark tone of the air and all four felt able to loosen up a little. Alex looked at Kelly seriously and nodded.

"We would be very glad of an extra person. Thank you."

Kim cleared her throat a little. She'd felt awkward ever since she had backed out of visiting the inside of the building that morning.

"I think," she said quietly, "I'm ready to go in this time."

Alex turned to her. She didn't look very sure about that.

"Kim, you don't have to do that," she whispered, "you don't have anything to prove."

"No, but I've got something to face," she said quietly. She looked down. "We've all been there. He's evil personified. He's hurt all of us in one way or another." She glanced at Robin. "Or hurt someone we care about." She saw him looking down, Simon never far from his thoughts, "I need to do this. I don't think I realised how much before."

Three faces nodded a little at Kim's words. She was amongst friends.

"Listen," Robin began quietly, "Kel, not to be too pushy but my stomach's going to start sounding like a thunder storm if I don't get something to eat soon and I noticed a lot of pasta sitting in your cupboard."

"Help yourself," Kelly said with a nervous smile.

"Thanks," Robin said, jumping to his feet and making a quick escape to the kitchen.

Kelly smiled a little shyly at the others.

"I just love the way he thinks anyone would mind him taking over their kitchen," she said quietly, "best cook I know."

"Yes, I'm inclined to agree," Alex said with a little smile.

An uncomfortable silence fell over the three of them as the inimitable sound of Robin cooking, and dropping things, came from the kitchen. Words had been exhausted, just like their minds and bodies. The event they were building up to was the white elephant in the room. And it was certainly more imposing than the tattooed one on Kelly's posterior.

~xXx~

"You're doing well," Evan told Nailer, "you're being very helpful, they'll see that. The more you help them now, the more chance there will be of them agreeing to set bail."

Nailer's ironic smile stayed on his face just as it had from the moment he addressed Evan in the cell, but his eyes were fading now. He was exhausted. Hours of interrogation had worn him down.

"Can I have my phone call?" he asked.

"Mister Nailer, you have already had your phone call," Evan reminded him.

"I just want to know if my girlfriend's alright."

"Well you should have thought of that before using your one phone call to check that a large consignment of narcotics had arrived safely!" Evan scolded, "Which, incidentally, won't be winning you any brownie points."

Nailer leaned back in the hard plastic chair and folded his arms behind his head.

"Look, I'm a businessman," he said, "first and foremost, that's what I am. I need to make sure my suppliers and employees are happy. What sort of a boss would I be if I didn't"

"One who didn't supply illegal substances to half of London and the south-east," said Evan.

Nailer sighed.

"I don't understand what I do that's so wrong," he said with a smile, "I just sell things that give a lot of people a lot of pleasure. You arrest me for that, you might was well arrest the king of Sony for inventing the Playstation!"

"There's no such thing as the King of Sony," Evan began before he realised Nailer was winding him up and gave an angry sigh. "Mister Nailer, we had an agreement…"

"Yes, we do," Nailer said crossly, "and you have to do your part first. Get me out on bail and I'll make your problem disappear."

Evan swallowed.

"I hope you are not suggesting through illegal means?" he asked feebly

Nailer sighed and chewed on his fingernail.

"I would suggest no such thing," he began, "however, if I let it slip to some of my associates that my solicitor is being bothered by a nasty little maggot then I can't be held responsible for their actions, can I?"

Evan stared at Nailer. He was getting in deep. Too deep. But he couldn't seem to make it back to the surface so the only was now was down, down, deeper, further into the dark murky depths.

"I will give you a few moments alone before the interview continues," he said.

Nailer glanced up as Evan walked to the door and knocked firmly to be let out of the room.

"See what you can find out about Vicki," he called after him.

"Vicki?" Evan glanced back.

Nailer nodded slowly.

"My better half," he said. The smile began to waver and fall.

Evan stared at him. That was the first time he'd seen that smile fade.

"I'll see what I can find out," he said quietly and left Nailer alone with only his sarcasm for company.

~xXx~

A large amount of pasta disappeared in a very short space of time. For Alex, Robin and Kim, a long and exhausting day with little food had led them to feel drained and in need of some energy, while Kelly was just grateful not to have to cook after a heavy day at work.

"Were… you… _serious_ about going straight to bed?" she asked. Glancing at the clock and seeing it approach eight she couldn't have felt less sleepy if she tried.

"You don't have to," Robin told her, "we understand you're the only one without a screwed up sleeping pattern."

Kelly gave a weak smile. Her anxiety about the trip she'd agreed to in the morning was starting to grow.

"Well," she said, "Maria promised she wouldn't come back tonight. She had to go for drinks anyway and she's staying with Tom so she won't be back until after work tomorrow. I won't pretend I'll be able to sleep so I'll tell you what, two of you can have my bed and one of you can have the couch. I'll be in the kitchen. I have work to do, I'll stay out your way and I can crash on Maria's bed when it gets late enough."

"Are you sure?" Robin frowned, "it feels like we're really imposing."

"It's no problem," Kelly shook her head, "you'll owe me another one of these though." She pushed her empty plate away from her and licked the last of the sauce from her finger.

"Deal," said Robin.

"I'll take the couch," Kim volunteered.

"Oh, no, Kim, you slept on the couch last night," said Alex, "you can't –"

"I want to watch the news," Kim said quickly. She bit her lip. The redhead on the television had been plaguing her with her familiarity but she still couldn't place her. She was hoping a little quiet time watching it would help things slot into place.

Alex felt a little awkward about Kim being consigned to the sofa for another night but she seemed very certain.

"Alright," she said, "if you're sure?"

She watched Kim nod.

"I'm sure."

Alex turned to Robin.

"We're in the bed again then," she said.

Robin felt his eyelids close momentarily as a slight cringe crossed his face. After his unexpected physical reactions earlier on he didn't think it was a very good idea. Four months with no affection had given his nether regions something to think about and he was not in the mood for a repeat performance.

"Maybe I should have the couch," he said.

"Don't be a martyr, Robin," said Kim, "I really do want to sleep on the couch."

"But –"

Alex looked at him a little hurt.

"Don't you want to sleep with me?" she asked.

'_Oh for –'_

Robin felt like a character in a cheap sitcom where all the jokes were coming at the expense of his uncomfortable predicament and only the studio audience understood the puns.

"_Yes,"_ he said tightly, "yes, _fine,_ bed it is." He got to his feet and walked awkwardly out of the room.

"Where are you going?" Alex called after him, a little worried.

"_For a shower before bed!"_ he called back, adding quietly, "a bloody cold one."


	63. Chapter 31, 1995: A Battuta

_**A/N: The second of 2 chapters tonight!**_

**Chapter Thirty One: 1995**

Simon wiped his mouth, took a deep breath, straightened up and sighed. He opened up the passenger door, climbed back in the car and stared right ahead as he pulled on his seatbelt.

"You quite finished, Shoebury?" Gene asked with disapproval.

Simon gulped and took a deep breath, his expression somewhat annoyed.

"Yup, I think that's just about done it," he said.

"I've never seen someone throw up that far before," Kim commented.

"I was not going for the Olympic distance record," Simon said, his face turning from green to red.

"What's gotten into you?" asked Gene, "aside from my scotch."

Simon closed his eyes. He didn't want to get into a debate about Gene's driving.

"That sandwich was off," he mumbled.

"But I've never seen anyone…" Kim began but Gene cut her off.

"Now now, Metal Mickey. He's obviously upset. Maybe we should stop _bringing it up…"_

Simon scowled as Kim snorted in the back.

"Just drive," he mumbled.

Gene didn't need telling twice.

"Hold onto yer innards, Simon," he advised and his foot hit the accelerator faster than you could say 'Oral-Ridgeleys'.

~xXx~

Keats hobbled up the stairs, muttering under his breath. His toe felt as though an elephant had used it as its landing spot after a fall from a high wire. He reached his front door and held out the key, only to find half his door was missing.

"_The fu-"_ he began as he stepped slowly inside. He reached out for the light switch and started to look around as the room lit up. Things were different. Things had been moved. Disturbed. Someone had been there.

"Hello?"

He wasn't sure why he was calling out. He was almost certain whoever had been there was now long gone. With a slightly staggered pace he walked around the lounge. The pain in his toe began to fade into the background as he eyed the papers around his couch and table. There weren't very many left there now. Earlier that morning there had been practically a small tree's worth.

"Fucking burglars!" he cried, "who could have been behind this then? Hmm?"

A glint of something shiny caught his eye. He stooped down slowly and picked it up. It was cheap plastic keyring that had a picture of Starbug on one side. He turned it over to find that the back bore the slogan _"My other spaceship is the Red Dwarf."_

"_Simon,"_ he hissed. Anger rose inside of him. It burned in his chest like fire, turning his skin red with heat. _Oh,_ how he hated that man. How every bone in his body ached to seek revenge on him, for every single thing that he'd done. The little things, the big things, everything in between – it felt as though everything bad that happened to him, Simon was always _there._ Lurking in the background. Waiting to destroy his plans. Waiting to take away everything he was working towards. Simon and his perfect face and his perfect personality and his god-damned perfect _life._

"I will get you for this," he hissed, staring at the keyring, "Just wait, Simon. You'll see. Oh, you'll get what you deserve. I promise you that. You've gone a big step too far, my friend. You are going to pay for this. For this, and for everything else you've done."

He began to sink into the couch but a familiar scent caught him. He scowled and leaned in closer over the material of the sofa and took in a deep breath.

"_Hunt!"_ he spat. Just as he thought he couldn't get any angrier, it became infinitely clear that the two names on the top of his hit list had been in this together. The smell of Gene's scotch mixed with the aftershave that he claimed not to wear was the biggest giveaway.

"I can't believe it," he spat, "The nerve, the _fucking_ nerve!"

He kicked out and knocked the coffee table flying backwards, realising a split second too late that he'd used his bad foot and began to scream in pain again. _"Aaaarrrrggghhhhh!" _

Back to his feet, he hopped around for a while, letting out so many swearwords that he sounded like a novelty single by Roy Chubby Brown. Somewhere amongst all the hopping and the swearing his attention was drawn to something across the room, or rather the lack of something. He began to slow down his frantic hopping as another wave of anger overtook him.

"My briefcase!" he cried, "They've nicked my fucking…" He threw his hands in the air. This, he decided, was the ultimate definition of adding insult to injury. He gave a furious cry that sounded rather like a strangled bear but a calmer thought began to filter through his fury. As he stared at the blank space where his briefcase had stood just that morning he thought about its contents. The items that lay within.

"Oh _my,"_ a smile spread across his face.

Had Hunt found it already? Had he already pored through his personal possessions? Had he already found what he knew would bring Hunt to his knees?

No, surely not. If he had then he'd have received far worse than a flattened toe. Hunt would have knocked his block off, he was fairly certain of that. He threw back his head and brayed evilly. Perhaps his papers were proving too interesting. Perhaps Hunt and his geek-faced sidekick hadn't even had the chance to explore the briefcase yet.

Well, if that was the case then they would be in for quite some surprise tomorrow. Oh, what a joy that would be to behold. Perhaps Hunt would need a little prod in the right direction? A call, maybe? A reminder to check his case, just on the off chance it contained something he would find interesting.

"Oh, Hunt, I don't envy you," he said with a demented smile as he sank onto the couch, ignoring the half a door and the upturned coffee table, "you're going to flip your lid. Simon's going to be picking bits of your brain off the ceiling for a week." He closed his eyes and gave a frenzied laugh, "Keats two, Hunt Nil."

That's where he stayed for the rest of the night as exhaustion seeped into his bones. The pain from his toe had sapped him of strength and sent him into a deep slumber before he knew it, a slumber where only the sweetest dreams surrounded him – the sweetest dreams of revenge, of destruction, of coming out on top for once, just for once in his life.

All the threads were coming together and he felt like a winner. He _was_ a winner. This time no one would take him down.

This was his victory. Two fingers to Hunt and Shoebury. For all he cared they could go to hell.

~xXx~

Simon felt as though he hadn't been home in decades. He sighed miserably as he laid his keys by the door and wandered through the lounge with Kim and Gene behind him.

"Oh _no," _he sighed.

"What now?" Gene asked, tired of Simon's misery.

"I've lost my bloody keyring," Simon told him.

"I'll give you mine," Gene offered.

"No thanks," said Simon, "yours had got a picture of a lady whose clothes disappear when you turn it to a certain angle."

"You can have mine then," Kim offered.

"You've got the same bloody one!" Simon reminded her.

He waked through to the kitchen, leaving Kim and Gene to argue over what to put on the television and walked to the sink. He put his hands against the side of it as though he needed something to hold him upright.

For the last hour or so he'd tried hard to keep the words at bay. He'd fought with them. Put them out of his mind as much as he could. Now they were back and without Gene's driving to give him a distraction there was nothing to take them away again.

He glanced behind him, through to the lounge, where Gene was pretending to fight with Kim, flexing his muscles while Simon knew he was going to give in eventually. He saw Gene's expression, the shallow fight covering up the matter that was really on his mind. The matter that was on his mind _all_ of the time. Every moment of every day. There was never a second that he looked at Gene and saw anything other than worry for Alex in his eyes.

He sighed and hung his head, then he stared into the sink for some time. How could it be wrong? How could _Gene_ be wrong? The words he'd read made so little sense. _He's doing it right,_ Simon's mind screamed, _he's the one getting it right! If Gene's wrong, then so am I._

He shook his head and clutched the sides of the sink so hard that his knuckles turned white. He wondered for a moment why his tap had started dripping, then realised it was his own tear that had dripped into the sink.

The burden of knowledge was already eating away at him. He wasn't strong enough for this, he was sure. He could see himself going the same way as Sam Tyler, giving up his own life to protect Gene from the truth. He hoped that he wouldn't go the same way as Keats, eaten up with evil and twisted by the bad and the low.

How was he to deal with this? The truth he'd learned was so big, far bigger than he was. Bigger than_ any_ man.

He knew that it could be his key. It could be that one thing he was looking for to unlock the human side of Keats and send the monster packing but if that destroyed Gene's heart and soul in the process then where would that get him?

He looked back at Gene and Kim again. The mock fight was over and Gene was happily watching whatever Kim had wanted in the first place. Flexing his muscles. That's what he did. That's what he _always_ did. And sometimes he took it too far. Sometimes he made mistakes and unwise decisions that led to trouble, but not for one moment did that take away from Gene the heart that burned inside him.

"But that's what's caused all of this," Simon breathed.

He closed his eyes and choked back screams and tears that he couldn't let escape before making his expression as neutral as he could to call for pizza and organise the evening's nutrition. He knew that the pizza would be just as lacking in taste as his sandwich and he'd have to force down every bite as the secret would stick in his throat, choking him and killing his appetite. But at least the process of organising food would give him a distraction for a few minutes.

He would be back organising his videos in alphabetical order at this rate.

He remembered the starlight on the ceiling. Time was running out. He had to work out what to do with the knowledge and he had to do it fast because, ultimately, none of this would matter unless they could use it to get their Alex back where she belonged.

Right or wrong, Gene needed Alex to stand by his side and until she was fully restored to Fenchurch East then the walls would keep on crumbling down.


	64. Chapter 32, 2011: Marcatissimo

**A/N: Single chapters for the next 2 nights, then doubling up again as events converge.**

**Chapter Thirty Two: 2011**

Alex was used to borrowing clothes by now. How many nights had she spent in other people's pyjamas? She sighed as she slipped under the warm duvet of Kelly's soft, comfortable bed and sank down into it.

"_Ohhhhhhh,"_ she gave a deep sigh of pleasure.

Robin closed his eyes and muttered under his breath as he climbed delicately into bed beside her, staying a fair distance away. Now she was making sex noises because the_ duvet_ was soft and cosy? This was getting worse and worse.

'_I should have had that cold shower,'_ he thought to himself.

"Robin? Is everything OK?" Alex asked him.

Robin sat awkwardly on the furthest part of the bed.

"Fine. Why?"

"You're looking a bit stiff," Alex told him.

"_What?"_ Robin panicked for a moment.

"You seem tense," she explained.

"_Oh,_" Robin gave a sigh. He closed his eyes and slipped down in the bed, resting his head against the fluffy pillows behind him. "Sorry." He paused. "Missing Simon a lot right now," he said quietly.

Alex nodded slowly.

"Sorry," she whispered. She understood to a point. It had been over a month since she had woken up in 2011 and her heart ached to be home with Gene. She looked down and felt a lump in her throat. "We're both on the wrong side."

"_Simon's_ on the wrong side," Robin said quietly, "he needs to be back here with his DVDs and his iPhone and his laptop."

Alex gave a strained smile.

"That's not possible," she said quietly.

"I know," Robin said quietly, "doesn't stop me from wishing though."

Alex looked at him with great sadness. For so long she'd thought of Robin as being in the same situation to herself but now she saw the big difference. Thanks to Kim, she knew she would get home. Robin and Simon would still be apart.

"Try to get some sleep," she said quietly.

Robin nodded, but his eyes were already closing. He had a feeling that her advice was going to be easy to follow. The strain of the last few days had taken its toll on him and sleep was fast descending.

"You too," he murmured, "Night, Alex."

"Goodnight," Alex said quietly. He felt her kiss him on the top of his head like a mother putting him to bed for the night, then sleep began to creep in. Absently he rolled over to get more comfortable and snuggled down. His mind grew cloudy, his body heavy and he began to drift deeply away until a voice woke him back up.

"Robin?"

It was Alex's voice.

Ignore it. It'll go away.

"_Robin?"_

"Hmm?" he mumbled in his sleep, "What?"

There was a pause.

"Why are you poking me in the back?"

There was a moment of silence before Robin was suddenly very wide awake.

_Shit!_

~xXx~

Nailer looked up expectantly as Evan came back in the room, but the man's expression was downcast. His eyes looked toward the floor, to the walls, to the space just beyond Nailer. Everywhere except in his direction.

"About time too," Nailer said, "I'm itching to spill whatever morsels this lot need to set me loose."

Evan sat down quietly opposite him. He folded his hands on top of one another and looked Nailer in the eye.

"Mister Nailer," he began.

Nailer caught a look of strain on Evan's face and sadness in his eye.

"This sounds serious," he said quietly.

"Well," Evan began, "I'm afraid it is."

Nailer took a deep breath.

"I hope you're not going to tell me you're walking out on me to look for that goddaughter of yours," he said, "because I know you need my help."

"No," Evan said quietly, "that's not it."

Nailer chewed on his lip.

"It's about my bail," he guessed, "right?"

Evan shook his head.

"No," he said quietly, "your bail hearing will be in the morning."

Nailer stared at Evan.

"Then what is it?" he asked. His voice raised a little. "You're my brief, so you can keep it brief, but spit it out." He watched Evan's expression as his eyes cast downward again and something inside of him told Nailer what was bringing him such a struggle to share. "Vicki," he said. He watched Evan's expression. "How bad is it?" Still no response. "Is she dead?" He waited a few moments longer. "She is, isn't she?" When Evan still didn't respond he felt his anger rising. "On come _on!"_ he cried.

Evan looked up at him. He swallowed and took a deep breath. That was only half of it.

"She wasn't your girlfriend," he whispered.

Nailer's heart turned into a giant slab of stone and sank right into his boots. He swallowed but the lump in his throat didn't seem to move. He found himself licking his lips repeatedly, trying to make sense of Evan's words but they held no meaning.

"What?"

His single spoken word was accompanied by a laugh,. A confused, ironic laugh. He looked at Evan, waiting for the cameras to arrive and announce he'd been caught on _Copper Candid Camera_ but nothing happened.

"I'm sorry," Evan said quietly, "she was undercover."

The smile on Nailer's face stayed perfectly still while every other part of his expression fell. His face collapsed as Evan's words started to sink in. No sense. It made no sense at all.

"Bollocks."

"She was," Evan said quietly, "look, there's someone who's going to come and talk to you about this…"

"No," Nailer got to his feet, "No, that's bullshit. She –"

Evan shook his head.

"I'm so sorry, Mister Nailer."

Evan had never seen a man fall so hard or so fast before. One moment he was standing there before him, the next his legs had crumbled beneath him and his rock-solid form was in pieces on the floor. Unsure whether his shaking was caused by a physical problem or emotional distress Evan had no option but to raise the alarm and officers ran to his aid as he lay on the ground.

Evan slowly backed to the door, desperate to escape the room and the situation. He had never seen the truth bring someone to their knees so fast before. It shocked him to the core.

"_Learning something so devastating about someone you love," _he whispered to himself,_ "is as good as dying."_

At that moment he knew once again, more certainly than ever before, that he had to keep the truth from Alex at all costs. The truth was infinitely more deadly than a lie and after he'd come so close to losing her already he was not going to be responsible for bringing her down.

~xXx~

Sprawled across the couch, Kim's plans of watching the news to work out where she had seen the woman who kept appearing on the screen before were fast fading away as a deep sleep enveloped her. The day had been more than exhausting. She had little left to give and almost as soon as she laid down her head her eyelids dropped and she fell into a deep slumber.

At first it was peaceful and for an hour she slept soundly with only the noise of Kelly tapping away on her laptop at her paperwork and the light mumble of the news in the background. Somewhere out of the blank canvas of her slumber, a dream began; a dark dream that brought to her pain on so many levels. Physical pain, mental pain, emotional pain – dark hurts and memories she'd left lying dormant for so long.

There were flashes of blue. She recalled the lights from the ambulance as the paramedics carried her to the ambulance, the fear she felt inside her, the agony that radiated from the inside out.

_"Stay calm, sweetheart, you're going to be alright,"_ she could hear the paramedic telling her gently.

She saw flashes of moments; the mask approaching her, the kindly voice giving her comfort –

"_Gas and air, love, it'll help take the edge off the pain."_

The sensation as she breathed in was one she had felt before. It was familiar to her but it took a little while for her to recognise it. It was the same feeling she always had around _him._

The dream went on. The nightmare grew. The screams and the tears started to come forth as it played back to her for the first time in years the terror and the loss and the grief that she had never allowed herself to face. She didn't feel she had a right. It all came forth now.

The voices from the hospital, questioning her, demanding from her information that she didn't want to give. Telling her things that she didn't want to know.

_"Young lady, you were asked if you were pregnant and you said no."_

She didn't know. She didn't _know!_

"_I'd put you at about twelve weeks. Maybe more."_

How could she have been so oblivious? How could she not have realised? That tore her up inside, every damn day.

_"Looks like placental abruption,"_

"_I'm not pregnant!"_

_"Are you sexually active?"_

She tossed and turned as the voices and the images came back to her, torturing her with her ignorance and innocence. She didn't know… she just didn't _know._

And then the dream changed; the agony was fading and there she was, alone in her hospital room, the tears flowing and her pain purely emotional. Clutching her pillow to her chest she sobbed for a loss of a magnitude that she had never felt before in her life.

There was a flash and the dream changed again. _He _was there, right there in her room, watching on, staring as she slept.

_"I'm so sorry,"_

The words came from him. From _him!_ So unfamiliar. Such a strange thing to hear him say. And his face, the look in his eyes, something she had never seen before. A terrible sense of guilt; of grief, of remorse. A soul-crushing remorse.

And then again, a change of scene; the hospital room, wide awake now with _him _standing there before her.

_"You should have told me," _

_"What?"_

_"About the baby. if you didn't want to raise it we could have… reached a deal."_

Kim wanted to scream. She tried – oh _god,_ she tried, but her voice ceased up and she couldn't make a sound.

A deal. A _deal?_ Was that what he'd wanted on some level? A child? Did he want to pass on his corrupted DNA? Needed someone to pass on the torch?

And then just a moment later, right there in her mind's eye, a man in pieces, consumed by grief and devastated by the human emotions that he had no control over.

And then –

- One cry. The sound of a baby, and suddenly Kim was wide awake. She sat bolt upright, her heart was pounding and her brow was covered in hot perspiration.

"_No!" _she screamed out, her body wracked with violent tears, "I didn't know! I didn't _know!"_

Her guilt and grief had never felt so strong before. They came from somewhere deep inside her, somewhere that she had hidden them away. For years she'd covered them up as something unreal, that could never have happened in a world that she wasn't sure even existed. Now she knew for sure that place was as real as the one she was sitting in right there and then, she knew her baby had been real too.

And so was her grief.

"I'm so sorry!" she cried out, "I didn't know! I really didn't know!"

She tried to stem the sobs that seemed to shake her whole body from head to toe but they were wild and angry. They'd been in hiding for so long that now they'd been set free via the catalyst of Alex's arrival and their imminent trip to Keats's flat, they were uncontrollable.

"Hey!" a panicked voice came from the doorway as someone raced across to her. Kim was in such a state she couldn't even tell who it was.

"I'm so sorry," she cried again, "I didn't know!"

"Didn't know what?"

Kim looked up and her vision cleared enough finally to see that the person who'd appeared was Kelly, looking both anxious and a little annoyed. Kim tried to calm herself down but her heart wouldn't stop racing.

"If I'd known I could have changed things!" she cried.

"Known what?" cried Kelly, "are you OK?"

Kim opened her mouth to reply but words were not to be found. What could she say? How on earth could she even begin to express this? There was so much she couldn't say. Eventually as she sat there with her mouth agape, waiting for the words to come to her, Kelly felt a huge sense of pity toward the near-stranger and despite her slight nervousness around the woman she'd been trying to place she wrapped her arms around her and just hugged her. The sensitive, human notion released some of the anger and the hurt that Kim felt inside. That was all she wanted. Just someone to hold her, as though warm arms could make everything alright. She missed her family; her wife, her boys. She missed her normal life, the one she'd fought so hard to create ever since she'd woken from her coma so long ago. She wasn't sure she'd ever get that back now.

It seemed to take forever before she calmed down and felt able to draw away from Kelly's unexpected hug. She wasn't used to such gestures from strangers. But, she supposed, in circumstances so bizarre and adrift from reality it wasn't unusual to experience actions and emotions you would never usually do.

She looked at Kelly, feeling embarrassed and ashamed.

"God, I'm so sorry," she whispered, "what must you think of me?"

"I think you're someone in desperate need of a drink," said Kelly.

Kim gave a thin smile and wiped her eyes on the back of her hand.

"No, I'm OK, really," she said quietly.

"Are you sure?"

"I'll be fine. I'll be fine."

Kelly stared at her as she made her protests. She really did seem familiar.

"Are you sure you didn't tattoo an elephant on my bottom?" she asked. She stared at Kim as she tried and failed to raise a smile. "What's the matter, Kim?"

"I had a nightmare," Kim said quietly, rubbing her blurred eyes, "a bad one." She sniffed. "Keats… he hurt me. Sometimes it comes back."

Kelly's face fell. She had nightmares too.

"I know," she said quietly. She swallowed and studied Kim's features. "Did you ever come into the station to report a runaway goldfish?" she asked.

Kim shook her head with a curious frown.

"Well… no," she said.

"Hmm," Kelly knew she'd have to keep thinking on that one.

"Look, I'm OK," Kim said quietly, "really. And I'm sorry for scaring you."

"Hey, it's OK," Kelly told her, "my flatmate sleepwalks. Nothing scares you after you've had her jumping on your bed from the dressing table, thinking she's at the swimming pool on the high dive."

Kim finally raised a smile.

"No," she said quietly, "I imagine not."

Kelly bit her lip awkwardly.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

Kim shook her head.

"I'm fine, really," she said, "I just…" she gave a deep, heartfelt sigh. "I miss my family, I guess. They're away right now. Heaven help me when they see me on the news aiding and abetting two '_mentally unstable'_ members of the force to tattoo their police dogs and break into flats."

"Oh God, Kim," Kelly couldn't help laughing, "I'm sorry." She paused. "I didn't know you had a family.

"At least I _hope _I still have a family," Kim said quietly.

Kelly stared at Kim, still trying to work out where she knew her from. She snapped her fingers

"Marlborough Hotel bar, Brighton, two thousand and four, that comedy show, we were the only members of the audience?"

Kim looked at her blankly.

"Uh, no," she said.

"Damnit, thought I had it then," said Kelly. She shook her head slowly. "You're so familiar."

"I used to work at Fenchurch East," said Kim, "but that was a long time ago. I left in two thousand and three."

Kelly shook her head.

"I didn't join up until two thousand and four," she said.

Kim shrugged a little.

"Can't be that then," she said quietly.

Kelly closed her eyes. She was beginning to feel a little sleepy now. She realised she should probably try to get a little sleep before she joined the others on their Layton hunting expedition.

"Listen, I'm going to get some sleep," she said, "are you going to be OK?"

Kim felt incredibly stupid for her tears and her screaming. She nodded slowly.

"I'm fine," she said sincerely, "and I'm sorry. I think the thought of going to that place…" she gave a sigh, "it let something free I'd been locking away for too long."

Kelly nodded slowly as she got to her feet.

"I understand," she said quietly. She gave a weak smile and a nod. "Night, Kim."

Kim tried to smile back but it was strained.

"Bye, Kelly," she said quietly.

As Kelly left the room and Kim drew her legs back onto the couch for comfort she closed her eyes and for the first time in many years allowed herself to think about that terrible day in 1995. She had been wracked with guilt for so long. Keats may have delivered the blow that brought an end to her pregnancy but if she'd known she would have done things so differently. Changed her lifestyle, eaten the right things, cut out the smoking and the drinking.

The words of the doctor played back to her, that even if the pregnancy had been healthy her body was not a strong enough environment for it to survive. She thought about her pregnancies with her boys, how well she'd taken care of herself, she'd done everything right and had learned from her mistakes but she'd never been able to fight that sense of guilt.

A different thought struck her. For the first time ever, it came to her. Despite her lifestyle, was that _really_ enough to weaken the pregnancy sufficiently for that blow from Keats's boot to bring about the loss?

Her body was not strong enough to support the pregnancy. _The _pregnancy or _any _pregnancy? She seemed to have managed well enough twice over since then.

Were things different in Gene's world? Was parenthood even possible?

Or was it something more close to home than that?

Keats wasn't like normal men. Keats wasn't quite human.

And not just in terms of the monster that ruled him. She thought about his standing, the role he had in that world. Would it take someone like him to successfully carry his child? Someone of his own standing?

There were some vague memories that threatened to return, things long buried in the mists of time, but before they could return to her conscious mind she felt sleep dragging her down. This time it was clear and peaceful, free of dreams and nightmares. A little of the monster that had eaten away at her for so long had been dissolved now. It was still there in the background but never again would it have the same power.

She was starting to beat the personal demons that one evil man had left inside of her. And it was about time too/

~xXx~

Robin gazed at Alex, her eyes twinkling with such life and beauty. Her smile was a ray of light in a dark world and it drew him to her so strongly. He felt his heart fluttering and his pulse starting to increase. Slowly he moved toward her, gently until he was a whisker away and, leaning forward he pressed his lips against hers.

His eyes flew open and he sat bolt upright in bed with a gasp.

"_Oh god!"_ he breathed, panting hard and trying to shake away the memory of his dream. Instinctively he reached up and wiped his mouth as though to scrub away the feeling and made a few noises of horror. He glanced beside him where Alex was laying deeply asleep and he quickly scrambled out of bed. He closed his eyes and muttered to himself. He couldn't understand what was happening to him.

"Where the _hell _did that come from?" he mumbled. Disturbed by his dream and the strange way his body was behaving again he stumbled out of the room and blearily found his way through the lounge into the kitchen. He ran the cold tap until the water was icy and filled up a glass which he downed quickly. He gave a deep sigh and tried to push the dream from his mind.

"What the _fuck?"_ he breathed.

With the possible exception of his vague Gillian Anderson obsession he'd _never _had an attraction to a woman in his life but something about Alex was enchanting him. He couldn't understand it. He shook his head. It felt like a part of his mind was not his own. Something was out of place. He gave a deep sigh as he leaned over the sink, clutching the sides of it so hard that his knuckles whitened with the force.

"_Shit."_

"_Robin?" _a voice called out, "is that you?"

Robin closed his eyes and sighed. _Great._ Now he was Waking up the household.

"Yeah," he sighed, "sorry, Kim. Didn't mean to wake you up."

"Is everything alright?" Kim called out.

Robin pouted in the darkness.

"_No,"_ he mumbled, but turned and walked slowly through to where Kim was sitting on the sofa, the glow of the news illuminating the room. "Sorry. Had a nightmare."

"Must be a night for it," Kim said quietly.

"Not you too?" Robin sighed. He sank into the couch beside her.

"Just a bit," sighed Kim.

Robin stared at the muted television for a while. Pictures were flashing up of ambulances again. They'd been doing that for most of the day. His mind wandered for a few moments before he folded his arms and glanced at Kim.

"So, you were right," he said.

"I usually am," said Kim. She frowned. "What about?"

Robin pulled a face like a sulky child.

"I've gotten into an _emotional tangle I can't get out of,"_ he mumbled, "that's amateur psychologist Kim, one, Robin Nil."

Kim glanced at him. He seemed thoroughly miserable.

"Robin, you're such a drama queen," she said, "what's happened?"

Robin exhaled and shook his head slowly. He didn't want to go into his nightmare.

"It's OK, I'm just a bit down. That's all."

Kim gave him a tiny smile.

"Funny," she said quietly, "I thought you were supposed to be the happy go lucky one."

"I was much happier when Simon was around," Robin said quietly.

Kim looked away.

"Yeah," she said quietly, "of course you were. Sorry, Robin."

Robin closed his eyes and could see the image of his dream dancing before them. He shook his head again.

"I think my brain's broken, Kim."

"Permanent state of being for me," said Kim. She looked at him. His brow seemed laden with worry. "What's really the matter?" she bit her lip as she thought about his words. "is it Alex?" His eyes flitted to her for a moment. "You don't want her to go?"

"Something like that," Robin put his head in his hands, turned his dark eyes downward and sighed. "I feel like I'm in too deep and I'm so confused, I don't even feel like me any more."

"I don't think any of us do," Kim said quietly. She closed her eyes. "It's like we're all stuck in some kind of surreal bubble and nothing feels real."

Robin nodded slowly. He could identify with that.

"God, Kim," he whispered, "what are we all going to do when this is over?"

Kim simply shook her head. She had no answers for him. She just didn't know. All she could be certain of was that life would never be the same again.

~xXx~

"The on call doctor is with him now," a detective in a stuffy suit told Evan, "he had a panic attack, it seems."

"I can't blame him for that," Evan said tightly, "the man's been devastated by this."

"Nailer is a charmer," the man told him, "he's also been responsible for millions of pounds worth of trade in the narcotics industry, hundreds of overdoses, fifteen deaths from one batch of tainted cocaine, two explosions, the callous killing of a dog and the death of one very highly regarded detective chief inspector. Don't forget that."

"It is my job not to forget any part of that," Evan said curtly, "but the fact remains that this has destroyed him."

"Look," the man stepped a little closer, almost threateningly close to Evan, "We'd tried every other way we could find and he was always one step ahead. This was the only option we had left. What happened to DI Stone is immensely regrettable but when it came down to it she was doing her job and we all know how dangerous that can be. Look at your goddaughter."

Evan felt his face grow red in anger.

"My _goddaughter_ was not corrupted by an undercover investigation!" he cried, "My _goddaughter _did not sample the goods while seducing a drug dealer! My _goddaughter_ got a damn _bullet_ in the head because of a man with more debt up his backside than you've got crap coming out of your mouth! So before you start making comparisons, _detective_, I suggest you think very carefully about whether there are any you can honestly make!"

In a flurry of anger he marched out of the room, slamming the door behind him. He gripped his briefcase so hard he was worried the handle might crack. There was a part of him that understood; a part of him that knew Nailer was a valuable collar and his arrest was a priority - but at what price?

He had rarely felt sorry for a client before but this was different. He was fast discovering there was a first time for everything.

~xXx~

Alex's sleep was so deep that she didn't notice Robin getting out of bed, nor getting back in. Her slumber was so heavy that nothing could have disturbed her. Her mind was far away, clasped by a nightmare that wouldn't let go. It had pursued her for weeks, adding a little more each time until finally, in the safety of Simon's old flat, the full horror had come forth. Since then it had left her be and not bothered her mind, but here it was, back again.

And it started the same way as every other; the television screens, the speed dating, images of Keats starting as a man; a raven-haired charmer with the deepest eyes and a tantalising smile, slowly descending into a darker figure with a horribly twisted mind. And then, there is was again. The night he led her down to the basement.

The night he…

- But something was different this time.

The dream didn't follow the same course.

Back in Kelly's bed, Robin slipped into his own sleep beside her as Alex's body tossed and turned. She only stopped short of waking him by the fact that he was sliding into another nightmare of his own.

As her body thrashed, her mind ran through the events of that night. She recalled the basement; the heat, the air. She remembered the alcohol and the feeling of dizziness. She recalled his eyes, boring into her, catching her and holding her tightly in that stare. She recalled his voice, the tones that spoke right to her heart and soul, but there was something…. Something different…

She recalled the moment of giving in, the need, the desperation, but –

Trying to resist. Trying to say no. Trying to talk over the thoughts he was implanting inside her head.

_"Tell me, Alex,"_ she could hear his voice again, just as before, _"tell me no and I'll stop right now."_

_"We shouldn't…" _

_"That's not a 'no'."_

_"But, Gene –"_

_"Don't think about him,"_ that whisper haunted her again,_ "he's had his chance, and what's he done? Pickled himself half to death and left you to fend for yourself. He's missed his chance, Alex. You know that. We both know that. But the question is, do you want this? Here? Now?"_

This time, she recalled what she felt. What she _really_ felt. Truly felt. It wasn't the burning need for Jim. It wasn't the desperation her mind had played back to her before. It was a different feeling; an anger brought on by his words. An anger toward Gene for the way he'd treated her, the way he'd been treating her almost since she woke from her coma with that slap across her face.

How _dare_ he treat her with such coldness after all they'd been through? Was this all still going back to the tape? The one Martin Summers left on his desk? Did he still not trust her after she'd told him the truth about where she was from? Why wouldn't he open up to her about Sam? Why the hell wouldn't he even give her _that?_

She felt angry, shunned and rejected. Jim was right. He'd missed his chance. Gene had missed his bloody chance with her.

And in that moment of weakness, that moment of anger and resentment, he caught her in his gaze again and coaxed a whisper from her lips.

_"What's that, Alex?"_

_"Yes,"_ she'd breathed.

_"Are you sure?"_

_"Yes!"_

And all she thought about was Gene. As he pulled down her tights and threw them to the floor, _Gene_. As he took off her underwear, _Gene_. As he pulled her to her feet and pressed her against the wall, _Gene._

And as his hands moved across her body, caressing every inch of her perfect skin, one word escaped from her lips.

"_- Gene…"_

Like watching an alternative ending on a DVD, Alex saw things happen in slow motion. The expression on his face; the anger, the devastation, a heart that broke right down the middle.

"_Gene?"_ she heard his voice repeat her breathy word, _"GENE?"_

She felt the pain shooting through her backside as she landed on the floor, his grasp on her shoulders released as her body fell limply like a ragdoll. The heady atmosphere had taken away her ability to control her body or her movements so all she could do was to watch in horror and fear as a half-naked Keats began a tirade of screaming and screeching interspersed with kicking furniture. She felt woozy, her head was lolling and her eyes closed over and over again as hard as she tried to keep them open. There were snatches, flashes; the disturbing image of Keats finishing himself off nearby, the sound of him crying her name, the words he choked out that he would never be able to bring himself to say again, then the sight of him dressing and the knowledge that it was all soon be over.

Fade out to black as the haze took her over again, and then –

Blink.

Another blink.

Eyes fluttering open just a little, and there he was, right before her, almost like the image of him on the television screen, staring right at her. Those deep, dark eyes that spoke to her very soul.

"_Me and you, up against the wall, Alex…"_ his breath was hot and loaded with intent, "_that's what you'll remember when you think of this. You'll remember how much you wanted me. You'll remember how you begged me. You'll remember how hard I fucked you. How I gave you what you wanted. You won't remember THIS, Alex. All that will be in your head will be what I'VE dreamed about; night after night. I'm giving you that gift. My fantasy is yours now. And tomorrow, and the day after and every day until the end of time, you will want me and need me. Not Gene. Not anyone else. You will want me, and I WILL make this real. Next time, Alex, I'll make it real."_

He took a step backward and cleaned his hands off with his underwear before throwing it to the ground then, like a switch had been thrown inside of his mind, the attitude of a monster fell upon him.

_"I think you'd better rest, Alex,"_ she heard his voice quietly, "_you look shagged out."_ She heard that laugh, the one that haunted her in her nightmare before, but once again a switch flipped inside of him and with the kind of gentleness she had never expected of him he leaned forward and kissed her on the forehead. Catching himself, as though ashamed of his tender gesture, he drew back. He straightened his tie and took his coat from the back of the chair then moved slowly to the door. _"Don't sleep for too long. The cleaners will be round in a minute. You might want to clean up that wet patch on the ground as well. They don't like dealing with spillages."_ There was a laugh, then the sound of the door as it opened and closed.

Then she opened her eyes and her body rose from the bed with a gasp of shock.

Her hand rose to her mouth as she cried;

"Oh my _god."_

She stepped out of bed and paced up and down at speed as though desperate to work off the energy that her dream had put back into her body. She felt such strong disbelief, scarcely able to grasp the fact that her most terrible fear, her deepest nightmare, had been undone and the truth had come forth.

"_We didn't,"_ she breathed.

Smoke and mirrors, illusions, tricks and fantasies. That's all he'd had. That's all it had been. That's all it had ever been. He'd tried so hard to get her. He'd tried so hard to _have_ her, but he couldn't undo what was already in her heart, no matter how many tricks he tried.

And yes, she'd been close, and the temptation had been there – maybe if she hadn't said _that _name then the outcome would have been so different but the fact was that she _had…_ she had, and Keats couldn't bear that Gene was the one she wanted. Not even to have one night with her could he let that go. Instead his anger took hold and all he could do was to whisper the details of the fantasy he'd finished himself off with, planting them in her head with a vision to her believing they were real.

But his plan had backfired because her will was too strong. She didn't bend as easily as the others. His implanted memories lay dormant until she was weakened, away from home, and only then had they come forth. But even here she had finally seen through them.

"_I didn't do it."_

The bliss, the relief, the sheer elation she felt at that knowledge surged through her veins and restored her sense of peace. She was aware that her constant circling and pacing was likely to cause Robin to awaken as he stirred and mumbled in his sleep so she left the room quietly and tiptoed past a sleeping Kim into the kitchen where she sat at the table, adrift in her thoughts. She had spent the last few days hating herself for what she thought she'd done. Now there was only one person she hated and if she ever managed to find her way home she would leave Jim Keats in absolutely no doubt how she felt about him.

~xXx~

Robin was used to the scene by now. It was the third time his dream had taken him there but this was the first time he knew the man he was chasing.

"_Layton!"_ he cried out.

His cry had no effect as the scraggly haired man just kept on running.

"_Layton!"_ he screamed, this time even louder.

The man he'd been chasing through his nightmares all week turned around and fired but once again the bullet seemed to pass straight through his flesh and a scream came from behind him. He turned around, desperately trying to find out who was hurt but all he caught was a glimpse of brown hair and a body dropping to the ground before a split second of blaring car horns and the scent of petrol overtook him as he found himself in a car. The view outside was familiar. He'd been there before. To his side was a figure in the driver's seat and it took him but a moment to recognise it as Simon.

He opened his mouth to say something – to beg with him to stay, to tell him how much he missed him, to say one last _'I Love You'_ but the dream ended before he had a chance and he was once again wide awake, sitting up in bed, his heart racing and his palms sweating.

"_Shit!"_ he cried. How many nightmares did one man have to bear in one night? He wasn't sure which had scared him more – getting shot at by Layton or having an arousing dream about a woman.

Speaking of which, where _was_ she?

"_Alex?"_

He blinked a few times. In the dim light he could just make out that the bed was empty beside him. Where on earth was she? He hoped he hadn't been poking her in the back again.

"_Shit…"_

He tried to navigate his way through the flat on the lookout for her. There was no light on in the bathroom and Kim was asleep and snoring a little on the couch, which left just one place. Sure enough he found her sitting alone at the kitchen table.

"Alex?"

As she looked up at him there was something different about her, It shone in her eyes. Glistened. _Sparkled._

"Robin," she smiled, "Did I wake you getting up?"

"No, no, not at all," Robin shook his head, "are… is everything OK?"

Alex nodded and gave a strong smile.

"Everything's fine," she said.

Robin hesitated. He sat down opposite her and looked at her curiously.

"What's happened?" he asked, _"Something's_ happened. I can see that."

Alex leaned forward and looked at him sincerely. There was a life in her eyes that he hadn't seen since she arrived on his doorstep.

"It didn't happen, Robin," she said.

"What?"

"I didn't do it?"

"Do what?" Robin frowned. He paused. "Oh, _Alex,_ you didn't… you know…" he pulled a face, "_fart in bed?"_

Alex drew back in horror.

"What? _No!"_ she cried, "Robin!"

"Well _what_ then?" Robin asked.

"_Keats,"_ Alex said, a little more quietly, "it didn't happen."

It took Robin a few moments to realise what Alex was trying to say. When he did his mouth fell; open a little in shock and he drew back.

"Are- are you sure?" he whispered.

"He made me think it was real," she said bitterly, "he whispered it straight to my brain. Every line of his twisted fantasy. He made me believe it happened. He wanted me to recall it the next day, wanted me to think we'd…" she flinched, unable to say the words. "With whatever he'd used on me, drink or drugs or the damn gas and air he thought I would be under enough suggestion to believe it, but my mind was too strong, Robin." She leaned forward, her eyes sparkling again and reached out to squeeze his hand. "I blocked it all out and it only started coming back to me when I was weak… here, away from home, away from Gene, trying to recover."

"But you were so _sure…"_ Robin couldn't fathom how she had come to realise it was all an illusion.

"I dreamed the version he wanted me to remember," she told him, "he wanted me to think that we'd…" she swallowed, "he thought if he put those thoughts in my head I would want to be with him, Robin. It was like he used some kind of hypnotic spell on me, but I just had the nightmare again and this time…" she breathed in deeply, "this time I saw it for what it was. I saw why it didn't happen. I felt him drop me to the ground and scream the walls down because it wasn't him I wanted. I saw him crouching in front of me, telling me that I would remember things _his_ way. The covers came off, Robin. The dustsheet on the memory came away and I saw it for what it was." She closed her eyes. "I think there is a part of him that truly believes it happened. He hypnotised _himself_ into it. But not me." She said defiantly. "Not any more. I know now."

Robin bit his lip. He didn't want to bring a storm cloud into the sky but he had to voice the worry on his mind.

"If you were _that_ sure that it was real the first time you had the dream," he began, "then how can you be sure that _wasn't_ real and this one isn't just…" he paused, "just your mind trying to undo what you remembered?"

Alex looked at him. She didn't have any proof but she knew. Inside, she just knew.

"Because things suddenly make so much more sense," she whispered.

Robin didn't know what to do or to say. His relief at her words paralleled the way he felt when Simon's examination revealed that Keats had only faked what they had feared Keats had done to him. He felt his head drop to the table for a moment, murmuring _Thank god,_ into the wooden panels below, then when he gathered his thoughts a little he looked back up at her.

"How do you feel?"

Alex drew in her breath. She was about to say 'relieved' but a different emotion overtook it.

"Angry," she said, "I'm fucking angry. Robin, I can't _tell_ you how…." She stalled for words. There were none that expressed the way she felt. "I'm going to rip every limb from his body, one by one, and I can tell you which one I'll be starting with." She paused as another thought hit her, a pang of guilt filtered through. "Oh God, Robin… I put Kim through all that… reminded her of what he did to her because of what I thought… and it wasn't even real."

"Oh,_ Alex," _Robin shook his head, "that was something you had to do, and it wasn't like he was the innocent party. He might not have succeeded with you but he still tried. He might not have had you the way he wanted but he still screwed you up in here," he reached up to her forehead and gently pressed his fingers against it. "Just like he did to Simon."

As soon as he'd said those words his heart sank. A million memories of what Keats put them through flooded back to him. Was that why he was feeling so drawn to Alex? Were the parallels so strong?

Alex stared at him. The sadness on his face broke her heart.

"How can one man cause so much damage?" she whispered.

Robin shook his head slowly.

"I have no idea," he whispered.

"The one thing," she said quietly, "that I really regret about this morning is that I didn't find anything about who he was here."

"What do you mean?"

"When we went to his flat," Alex continued, "I looked through all those files he amassed, and we found his Layton list… but all we found out about him as a person was that he had far too much Wham memorabilia."

"Alex, you don't want to know what he was like here," Robin told her.

"But I do," Alex told him.

Robin shook his head slowly.

"I don't understand," he said.

Alex licked her lips slowly. She wasn't sure how to express what she was trying to say.

"Robin, he came from nowhere and ruined our lives in eighty three. He almost destroyed Gene's world. Then time shifted, Simon arrived and he tried to ruin things again. He died and Gene and I had ten blissful years without his darkness looming at the doorway. Without warning he came back – and then we found out that he'd been spending that time causing chaos on the other side of the line. I need to know what he did here, Rob. I need to know everything to put me back on an equal footing with him when I make it home. I need to know exactly what I'm dealing with."

Robin swallowed as he stared into her eyes. She made sense. Everything she said made perfect sense. He took in a jagged breath.

"Alex," he whispered, "it's ugly. It's really ugly."

"I didn't expect it to be anything but.

"But," he sighed, "if you _really_ want to know –"

She watched him expectantly.

"Yes?"

Robin hesitated. Then he stood up and walked slowly across to the kitchen counter where Kelly's laptop was sitting. He brought it back to the table, opened it up in front of Alex and brought it out of standby mode.

"This will tell you everything," he whispered.

Alex frowned. What the hell would Kelly have on her folding computer?

"I don't understand," she said quietly.

Robin opened up a browser and tapped away.

"It's on Four-OD," he said.

Alex frowned.

"Who ODed?"

"No, _Four_ OD. Channel four on demand." He looked at her blank expression and shook his head slightly. "Oh, Alex. We have to get you back to ninety five pronto."

Alex stared as Robin clicked on a few links.

"What's this?" she whispered.

Robin hesitated.

"You'll see," he whispered, "but I'm warning you, Alex, I want you to be absolutely certain that you want to know about this. Because once you've seen it…" he flinched and swallowed, "you can't erase it. It's there in your head for life."

Alex stared at him. Any tiny element of doubt slipped away as the courage she'd gained from her dream took over.

"I'm ready," she whispered.

With a nod, Robin clicked a button and then walked slowly away to allow Alex to absorb the information that she had been seeking.

"_Dispatches,"_ the screen read as a video started playing, _"Jim Keats: Where Did It All Go Wrong?"_

"What?" Alex whispered.

_"…The public should feel safe at the hands of our good officers and detectives; the mental health of those brave men and women is of utmost importance. So what happens when the man in charge of ensuring the mental health of every officer in the country turns out to be deeply mentally and emotionally disturbed himself?"_

The voice of the presenter shook Alex to her core. She took In a deep breath and steeled herself for what lay ahead. She knew she had no choice but to watch on.

This was the moment. The moment she would learn all she needed to know. The moment those gaps would be filled forever.

She just hoped she had the courage to see it through to the end.


	65. Chapter 32, 1995: Saltando

_**A/N: As a distraction in a difficult week I've decided in my infinite wisdom to start drawing digital portraits of my characters. I've started a new Livejournal to post them as I complete them, which I've now got linked as my homepage near the top of my profile. Have started with Simon (who else?) and posted his portrait on there now so if you ever wondered what he looked like you can take a look and see. And please don't worry, he is NOT wearing the jumper…**_

**Chapter Thirty Two: 1995**

Simon had missed him so much. So _very_ much. Staring into Robin's deep, dark eyes, rubbing his fingers through his raven locks, he felt so happy and so at peace. With one whisper of affection he leaned in close and felt the softness of his lips against his own, the kiss he'd waited for, waited for forever.

He gave a sigh of contentment and closed his eyes He wanted to relish every last second. The kiss seemed to stretch on forever until finally he had to come up for air, opened his eyes and drew back a little.

Before him, Robin's face morphed and twisted into the most evil of all faces and a smug, malevolent smile stared back at him.

"_Boo!"_ Keats said politely.

His braying laughter was still ringing through Simon's ears as he awoke in a cold sweat, sat up as though he was on a spring-like mechanism and gasped for air.

"Oh _God!"_ he gasped, wiping his tongue furiously with his hands as though trying to remove the Keats cooties. His heart was thumping with terror and disgust while his stomach turned and churned at the thought of what his dream had inflicted upon him. _"Shit!"_ He glanced around at Kim, sleeping deeply in his bed. Thank god he was already sleeping on the floor, he thought, because otherwise he'd probably have fallen out the bed in shock.

He put his head in his hands and took several deep breaths. He couldn't get the image out of his mind. He slowly got to his feet and rubbed his eyes as though he could wipe Keats away from his brain in that gesture. Slowly he trudged out of the room. _Time for some water,_ he decided_, some cool, clear water to wash away the memory._ He could practically still taste Keats on his tongue.

"_Yeugh,"_ he muttered, arriving at the kitchen door.

"Don't jump, Shoebury," a voice came from the darkness of the room, scaring seven shades of crap out of Simon.

"What the hell? _Gene?"_ Simon reached out and switched the light on to find Gene sitting at his kitchen table. "God, I should have known," he mumbled, shielding his eyes a little from the brightness of the light, "you're always here in the middle of the night. Why should tonight be any different.

"I told you not to jump," Gene reminded him.

"Which you said _loudly_, in the middle of the _darkness!"_ Simon protested. He gave a noise that was a cross between a groan and a growl. "What are you doing up anyway?"

"Couldn't sleep," Gene mumbled, "keep thinking about Jimbo's foot. Regretting it."

"Yeah, well. That probably was a step too far," nodded Simon,.

Gene leaned back.

"I regret not going back and getting the other one too," he said.

Simon sighed and crossed to the sink where he quickly filled a glass with water.

"Don't stay up too late, Gene," he advised quietly. He took a big gulp, refilled the glass then walked toward the door. "Do you want me to turn the light off?"

Gene eyed him.

"Sit down, Shoebury."

Simon's face fell like a small child who'd just been told it was time to go and buy his new school shoes on the last day of the summer holidays,.

"God, _no,_ Gene," he sighed, "not _'sit down Shoebury'_. I am _really_ not in the mood for _'sit down Shoebury'_ right now. It's late, I'm tired, I just had a nightmare and…" he looked down and sighed, "and I've got my bloody chest out, _again._ And my jumper's locked in the basement so I can't even get that." He looked at Gene with his big, blue, pleading eyes. "Can '_sit down Shoebury'_ wait until the morning? Please?"

Gene ignored his entire tirade.

"D'you know what the worst part about all of this is?" he asked.

Simon closed his eyes in defeat. It looked like there was no chance of postponing_ 'sit down Shoebury' _this time. Reluctantly he slumped across to the table and sat down, trying to cover as much of his chest as he could with his arms.

"What?" he asked.

Gene pulled his flask from his pocket. Simon was pretty sure he hadn't even attempted to sleep yet.

"I never got to tell her," he said, "Did I?"

Simon knew he was tired but this still wasn't making a lot of sense.

"Tell who what?" he asked.

Gene took a long swig.

"Alex," he said, "_Bolly._" He gave a hefty sigh. "I finally say the word and it wasn't even her in that pretty little head to hear it."

Simon looked down and felt his heart sink for Gene.

"I'm sorry," he said quietly.

Gene leaned back a little.

"All this poofy, girly, feeling bollocks," he said, "it's not bloody worth it. Not when no one listens to what you're trying to say," he added pointedly, aware that Simon had been completely oblivious to his friendship comment earlier.

Simon shook his head slowly.

"We'll get her back," he said, "we'll get her back, then you can tell her."

Gene exhaled.

"Not looking very hopeful, is it?" he asked, "she's giving Jimbo lip service at the door and your trip to the basement was a waste of time – apart from losing yer bloody jumper."

Simon looked down and swallowed. This wasn't a conversation he wanted to get into right then.

"I need sleep," he whispered.

Gene looked at him for a moment. Stared. It made Simon almost uncomfortable. Finally he spoke.

"You never smile, Simon," he pointed out, "not really."

Simon hesitated. He wasn't sure how to respond to that.

"Neither do you," he pointed out.

Gene breathed in and out slowly. He looked down.

"Sorry you're stuck here," he said quietly.

Simon hesitated. He felt sure whatever he said would end up sounding like an insult to Gene or his world one way or another so he stayed quiet. Eventually he rubbed his eyes and repeated his desire for sleep. He got to his feet and walked slowly to the door, glancing back over his shoulder on the way.

"Gene?"

Gene looked up.

"Hmm?"

Simon hesitated.

"Are you alright?"

Gene sighed then lifted his flask.

"We're fine," he said, "Until we need a refill."

Simon hesitated, then attempted a weak smile and walked back to the bedroom. The truth he'd learned was still burning him inside and it was getting harder to hide. Every time he looked at Gene it made him die a little more inside. He knew he had to make a choice and it had to be fast. Time was running out and the weight of the world sat on his shoulders, without even a jumper to shield him from harm.

~xXx~

Alex lifted another sheet of paper and re-read it as she shovelled more noodles into her mouth.

"So, I'm shot in two thousand and eight by Arthur Layton," she mumbled as she ate, "woke up in ninety five… the bullet wound is here so did Layton shoot me in ninety five as well? Or did the wound carry through with me?"

As soon as she felt certain that Keats had gone she'd rescued her slightly greasy notes from the empty pizza box and called for a Chinese takeaway.

"_I'll have a number five, a number nine, a number seventeen and a number twenty two please," _she'd said.

"Sorry, we don't sell lottery tickets," the smart-alec on the line told her.

Despite that remark, the number five and the number seventeen were already safely ensconced within her stomach and the other two were about to go the same way. So was the half a bottle of red she had left from the complimentary drink delivered with her order.

"Now, if I was shot to end up here, then how do I get home? Do I need to be shot again?" she scratched her head, "Or maybe stop someone_ else_ from being shot." She gulped down a large mouthful of red and sighed. "Or do I need to find Layton? Do I need to prevent this from happening?" she loaded her fork with noodles and chewed them thoughtfully. "Sam Tyler… well, he went into a tunnel…" she swallowed. "Do I need to go into a tunnel?"

She groaned. This was all getting a bit complicated now. She decided to leave her _getting-home-notes_ alone for a minute and try her _what-is-up-with-Keats _pile instead. She pulled them towards her and spread them out. She'd added to them a little since arriving back. There was now an extra sheet with the word _'Archiving' _in the middle and comments such as _'Locked door – repressed thoughts?', "Archives in basement = 'low' memories?" _and_ "obsession with 'down below'?"_

"So: _Jim,"_ she began, "What does he represent to me? What role is he playing in my fantasies?" she munched thoughtfully on some sweet and sour pork before continuing. "He verbalises my thoughts about my appearance. Externalises them. He 'rescued' me," she used air quotes and knocked noodles across the table, "…is he here to build up my self-esteem…" she sighed deeply, remembering his spiteful comments, "…or to knock it down?" She tilted her head to one side. "I came to this world and assimilated Sam Tyler's psychosis. Gene Hunt… he represents everything that is brash, crass, narrow-minded and bullish. Now, _Jim_…" she began, "Jim represents everything that is smart and proper; respects protocols… neatly dressed… takes pride in himself and his station…" her face began to fall a little, "but on the inside…" she gave a sigh, "there's spite. There's… there's cruelty. There's," she swallowed, "there's manipulation." She chewed on her lip as her thoughts evolved. "They're polar opposites." She paused. "So what does that say about Gene on the inside?" She bit her lip as a realisation dawned. "I think I've made a big mistake."

~xXx~

The night that passed was full of nightmares for both Simon and Kim. While Simon's featured his dearest beloved morphing into the face of evil, Kim's recalled her time under Keats's spell and the darkness that unfolded. After they'd both woken each other up three times apiece from their groans and screams they both decided to give up and make some early breakfast instead.

"What the hell were you even _dreaming_ about?" Kim asked accusingly, "the way you were screaming that last time I thought Gene had sat on your scale model of Starbug!"

Simon rubbed his eyes with the heel of his hand.

"Oh, you don't want to know," he sighed.

"Your dreams can't be any worse than mine," Kim told him.

"I'm not so sure about that," Simon mumbled. He gave a deep sigh. Over the course of the night his nightmares had been split equally between Keats and the truth he'd uncovered; the secrets he was keeping to himself. Then there were guest appearances by other traumatic events in his life, faces from the past, moments he'd rather forget. His mind had decided to gang up on him that night. He wished he'd abandoned all attempts to sleep right at the start. He'd had a more peaceful night on the stakeout.

"Which one of you two homos screamed the roof down at half four this morning?"

Gene's voice came angrily from the door and both turned around looking a little guilty.

"That could have been either of us," said Simon.

"Sorry, Guv," said Kim.

"And which one of you was it calling for their mum?" Gene frowned.

Kim scowled.

"That was him," she said, aiming a disapproving thumb in Simon's direction.

"I was _not_ calling for my mum!" Simon protested. He looked a little downcast. "I was dreaming about her."

He remembered so little about her, losing her so young. It had been several years since he last saw her make an appearance in his dreams. Maybe it was all the talk of Manchester that had brought her memory to the surface, or perhaps it was from just feeling so alone and longing for the comfort of his family. He ran a hand through his hair as it fell into waves and curls. He got those from her.

Gene looked as though he'd achieved about the same amount of sleep as Simon and Kim. He sank into a chair and gave a deep sigh.

"It's D-Day," he said. Two blank faces stared at him. "_Deadline day,"_ he said, "The super needs proof by the end of today that Drake's not lost her marbles or there'll be a van from the funny farm on the way to pick 'er up."

"Shit," Simon sighed as he sank down beside Gene. In the light of all he'd found the day before he'd almost lost sight of the bigger picture. He stared at Gene. "What are we going to do?"

"Well first," Gene began, "I need me morning latte. After that, we take one more look at Jimbo's papers. Then we'll go and hit her with everything we've got and hope it's enough to make her see what he keeps hidden on the inside. And I'm not talking about a stress ulcer in his guts."

"But we don't have anything," Simon said despondently.

"Get 'is tape," said Gene.

"What tape?"

"His snuff movie," Gene explained, "we can use the bit where he left Kite needing to give herself first aid. And I've got a porno to add to the collection."

"What?" Simon frowned. He hesitated for a moment, then a look of abject horror crossed his expression, "Oh Gene, _no,_ not the tape of the hospital roof."

"Relax Shoe-Boy, I'm leaving out the part where he gets fresh and fruity with yer nips."

"For the last time," Simon began through clenched teeth, "he never _has_, and never _will_, fiddle, fondle or do _anything_ with my nipples!"

Gene ignored him.

"The bit where he throws you," he explained, "and the fight before it. That'll show her some of his favourite pastimes."

"Yeah, throwing people off roofs seems to be a hobby of his," Simon mumbled.

Gene looked at them both seriously.

"This is crunch time," he said, "if I need to tell you how serious this is then you've 'ad yer 'eads buried like ostriches for the last three days." He paused and looked at them grimly, then said the words he could never, ever, under normal circumstances bring himself to say. "I need you."

Simon nodded.

"We won't let you down," he said quietly.

Gene nodded back. Then hesitated for a moment.

"Right," he said eventually, "in that case you can start proving yer worth by getting me morning latte. Stringer, you're with me on the paper trail."

Simon pouted and folded his arms as he got to his feet.

"How come I always get stuck doing the bloody latte run?" he asked.

Gene ignored his question.

"And get a mochaccino too," he said.

Simon frowned.

"Why?"

Gene stood up.

"Because yer guinea pigs seemed to like it yesterday," he said.

Simon frowned.

"If I find them with a loyalty card there will be trouble," he said.

~xXx~

Alex stood at the sink, running her toothbrush around her mouth for the second time and making absolutely certain that all traces of the scent of sweet and sour somethings disappeared before Keats arrived to pick her up. She had been clever this time. Before it got too late she had quickly tidied away her notes, disposed of all the evidence of her evening of gluttony, cleaned the table and made sure there was not a stray noodle in sight. By the time she went to bed both her stomach and her head were full. Her hunger pangs were a distant memory but while her body felt satisfied her mind was confused and distressed, the constant churning of thoughts disturbing her and preventing her from achieving the sleep she desired.

It was almost one before she finally drifted off into a shallow and nightmare-plagued sleep, mostly full of kinky thoughts about Layton and Russell Brand in a variety of poses and positions. She was relieved when the alarm finally went off and she no longer felt under pressure to attempt sleep.

Instead she busied herself preparing for the day ahead. _D-Day_. It was time to find the truth about Keats and whatever he was hiding from her. Whatever he was hiding about himself. It was time for the big reveal, whether he liked it or not.

She pulled a brush through her hair and swept back her fringe into the quiff he'd advised. Or was that 'demanded'? She didn't seem to have a lot of choice in the matter. The scar on her head still horrified her and it wasn't something she wanted to see staring back at her in the mirror but Keats had been so insistent on that damn haircut she hadn't felt able to argue.

With a slightly shaking hand she began to apply the eyeliner he'd procured for her. The make-up he'd advised her seemed over the top and old-fashioned but this was a day for wearing a mask and the make-up was all a part of that.

She'd prepared carefully. She had steeled herself for actions she wouldn't normally take, she had reasons and excuses for procuring a key coming out of her ears and she'd had one _fucking enormous_ breakfast. Talk about breakfast being the most important meal of the day – it was likely to be the _only_ meal with Keats and his floppy salads on her tail.

As she stepped back and looked at herself in the mirror there was one thing missing. _The smile._ The fixed smile that hid a thousand worries.

One small adjustment to her expression and the smile was firmly in place, ready and waiting to greet Jim upon his arrival. As it turned out, that wasn't far away. She'd barely had time to leave the bathroom before she heard a car horn tooting and ran anxiously to the kitchen window. Looking out, she saw Keats at the end of the path with a bright red car. _That's not a taxi,_ she thought to herself. It wasn't his car, either.

She quickly left the doorway and rushed along the path, applying the smile as she went.

"Jim," she breathed, "Hi."

She noted his smug expression and it made her flesh crawl. How different were her feelings about him now. It felt as though a little more of the spell broke with every moment that passed.

"Like the new wheels?" he asked.

"Are you still having car trouble?" Alex asked.

Keats's smile became a little strained as he thought about the part-wreck still standing by the roadside somewhere.

"Uh, yes," he said, "it's in for repairs. Picked up this rental beauty this morning." He opened the passenger side for her. "I'll drive you to work in style."

Alex threw back a smile as she slipped into the seat and drew in her breath. She knew she was going to need as much courage as she could find to carry out her plans. She closed her eyes just for a moment as Keats hobbled around to the driver's seat and sank down into it before slamming the door.

"How's your foot?" she asked him.

Keats looked a little sheepish. He hadn't taken his shoe or sock off all night. A combination of willpower, knock-out painkillers and a not-quite human degree of healing and tolerance for pain meant that he was able to put his many toe-related incidents behind him and focus on blocking out the agony. _Toe, schmoe._

"Nothing a good day rounding up the wrongdoers can't fix," he told her, "speaking of which…"

Alex glanced at him.

"Hmm?"

"I've got some business to attend to this morning," Keats told her, "so I'll be out the station for a bit. But I'll be back at midday. How would you feel about some lunch, and then spending the afternoon…" that smirk returned to his face, "well… in whatever way you had in mind yesterday evening." He glanced at her, "I hope you got plenty of rest last night."

Just for a second Alex closed her eyes.

_Oh God give me strength,_ she thought to herself.

Outwardly, her smile went up a notch.

"Oh yes," she said quietly, "of course I did." She stared out of the window. "It's a big day today. Need all the strength and energy I can get."

Keats raised an eyebrow. That sounded like his kind of day. Imminent victory over Hunt _and_ on a promise? Life really didn't get any better than that.

~xXx~

Simon swore as the latte slopped over his hand.

"Shit! These lids don't keep anything in!"

He wasn't feeling very appreciative of his honoured selection to do the latte run that day. Or _any_ day, for that matter. He was sick of the sight of _Latte Land._ His annoyance increased when the woman at the counter asked him if his guinea pigs had enjoyed their mochaccino the day before.

As he slouched along in the fine drizzle he glanced absently at a shop front and spotted in the window a smart leather jacket. His mind went back to his time in the basement the day before, examining the files in Keats's possession. He recalled the photos of Sam Tyler and a younger Alex. He still felt a little put out that he seemed to have missed the leather jacket bandwagon. Would Gene respect him more if he wore a leather jacket?

He glanced at the item in the window and tried to picture himself wearing it, then closed his eyes for a moment and gave himself a disapproving sigh.

"Oh, _stop_ it, Simon, what a bloody idiot," he mumbled. What the hell was he even _doing?_

He marched away quickly from the shop, so fast that the lattes spilled again and caused him to release another tirade of swearing before finally approaching the station. By the time he reached CID there was more latte on his trousers than there was in the three cups he'd been carrying. Gene looked up at him from the papers he'd been reading and gave a little smirk of amusement.

"Couldn't wait until you got back, Simon?" he asked, "that's why you should always go before you leave the house."

"Oh _shut _up," Simon mumbled, setting the cups on a spare desk. It was far too early to let Gene make him blush. It was becoming a daily occurrence and he wasn't in the mood.

"Simon, we've got some of the Nailer stuff sussed," said Kim. She took one of the cups, removed the lid and warily eyed up the half an inch of liquid left at the bottom of the cup.

Simon looked at her expectantly.

"And?"

"Nailer discovered Keats was the one who tipped you and Robin off to his location initially," she told him, "Keats remembered hearing about the explosion from the news during his coma, right?"

"Right," said Simon.

"Well, when Nailer was transferred to Fenchurch West Nailer recognised Keats as the one who'd been hanging around and taking happy snaps of him to tip you off. Whether that was why Keats let him walk free and stay at his house, or whether he just liked the guy, we don't know."

"We got phone records from Fenchurch East prison," Gene began, "Nailer's phone calls after he was arrested again – they've all been going to a familiar number."

"Oh, let me guess," sighed Simon.

"No need to guess," said Gene. He threw a file in front of Simon. "Asked for these yesterday. They arrived this morning."

"What are they?"

"Visitation records," said Gene, "Nailer's been getting a lot of social visits from Jimbo too."

"Keats has been more or less keeping the business going while Nailer's inside," Kim continued, "and getting a pretty penny for it. He doesn't touch anything dirty – it's all by the book, phone calls, paperwork, payroll –"

"Accountant to the rich, famous and jailed," Gene interrupted.

"But then there's the clean-up list," said Kim, "I double checked some of these names and half of them are witnesses for the prosecution in Nailer's trial. Presumably the other ones are people Nailer thinks could also hold information that could add a few eons to his sentence."

"Most of them have either developed a healthier bank account, gone away somewhere to spend more time with their friends and family or taken a long walk off a short pier," Gene added.

Simon swallowed.

"Shit," he breathed.

"I doubt Keats is getting his own hands dirty but I bet he knows a man who can."

Simon nodded slowly.

"I bet he does too," he said quietly.

"Can we use any of this to convince Alex that he's not the Mister Wonderful she thinks?" asked Kim.

"She'll throw it back at us and laugh in our faces," Gene said.

"On its own maybe," said Simon, "but we've got two tapes as well. Even if we just plant the seeds of doubt in her head…" he shuddered a little. The cold air of the morning had gotten right into him. "Look, I know this is only going to lead to trouble but…"

One look from Gene was all it too. One look told Simon he already knew what was coming.

"Just get the bloody thing, OK?"

"Guv?"

"The Noel Edmonds Lookalike Kit," said Gene, "Go and get it out the bloody basement."

Simon bit his lip nervously. He'd expected more than that.

"Ok," he said quietly, "back in a minute."

Kim looked up in surprise as Simon disappeared, then glanced at Gene.

"What was all that about?" she demanded.

"All what?"

"Telling Simon to get his jumper instead of burning it."

Gene looked a little sheepish.

"Been a bit hard on him lately," he said, bordering on an apologetic tone.

Kim looked at him in surprise. This seemed quite an adult sentiment for Gene. It caught her a little off guard.

"Yes," she said quietly, "You have a bit."

Gene hesitated.

"And besides…"

Kim eyed him warily.

"What?"

"If all else fails we can always use the jumper to knock 'er out like chloroform and get her back that way."

Kim hesitated. As much as she hated to admit it, that could be the best idea they'd had yet.

~xXx~

Keats dragged his foot a little as he marched through CID with Alex on his arm. Her smile was still in place and the mask was holding firm but inside her confidence was crumbling a little. Oh, how she hated being paraded through the hordes of workers Keats had lined up in his domain. She dreaded the hungry eyes focused on her and the envious looks that tore her to shreds. But most of all, it was that look from Victoria she dreaded. The hollow look. The pity. That was the look she struggled to understand.

"Alright, team," he spun around, almost yanking her arm off in the process and addressed his team, "this morning I have to attend to some business so I take it I can trust you all to listen to DCI Drake and look after her for me. In my absence she'll be in charge." He glanced at her as her smile wobbled a little and flashed a hint of anxiety. This '_in charge'_ nonsense had come out of the blue and she wasn't sure what she was supposed to be doing. "She asks you for a cup of tea, you bring her a choice of teabags. She asks for today's paper – you bring her half of Fleet Street. You got that?"

There were mumbles and nods from around the room.

"Jim, there's no need…" she began but Keats was on a roll.

"DCI Drake is a very busy woman," he said, completely oblivious to the fact that the Hi-Tech Crimes department had yet to rreceive a dedicated case, "so you leave her to her own devices and help her when she asks for it. Now, I 'll be back by midday and I want to hear glowing reports of each and every one of you. Got that?"

A vague mumble of _'Yes Guv'_ came from the less than enthusiastic department, making Alex feel even less comfortable.

"Good," said Keats. He held Alex's arm once again and led her back through the office in the other direction, lapping up every envious look thrown in their direction. "I meant what I said, Alex," he smiled, "you're in charge."

"Jim, I don't really know –"

"There's nothing to it," Keats said with a smile. Oh no, it was _that_ smile. She swallowed and tried to keep her mind focused elsewhere before it pulled her in again. "They might be a bit rough around the edges but they're all housetrained. They might gnaw on the table legs but they won't shit on the carpet." He reached out and laid his fingers against her cheek, cupping it gently and tilting her face up to his. "I'll be gone a couple of hours. Make yourself busy. Drink some tea. Read some papers and bark a few orders. Put this lot in their place. When I get back," his smile turned up a notch, "then the day will get interesting." He paused. "Won't it, Alex?"

Alex's smile flickered, just for a moment.

"Yes," she whispered, "Very interesting, Jim."

And then it happened – he started to lean forward, Oh, she'd thought that might happen. She felt torn in two, there was a part of her that shuddered at the thought and there was a part of her that still felt a pull toward him, like gravity pulling the moon to the earth. She closed her eyes and tried to block out the sensation of the kiss as his lips pressed against hers. She held in a nervous twitch and finally exhaled with relief as he moved away. There was a sparkle in his eyes now, the same one he'd had the night before.

"Good luck, Alex," he said, "I'll be back in a flash."

Almost as though performing an illusion he seemed to disappear before her. Logic said he walked down the staircase. Her eyes and mind said he vanished into thin air. With a nervous thump of her heart, she shook her head slightly and began to head back along the corridor to find the staircase into her office in the basement. She needed a little time to gather her courage and to make sure the devil had left the building, and then she would be on the trail of the information she'd been seeking. Whatever secrets Jim had tried to keep so well hidden were about to open up to her in the most visual way.

~xXx~

This bloody jumper," Simon mumbled as he turned the key in the lock, "it's going to be the death of me one way or another."

It was strange but his thoughts of his jumper has consumed his mind so greatly that he'd actually managed to forget the real meaning of the basement and the overwhelming barrage of knowledge and emotions that flooded back to him as he opened the door. They hit him with such force that nausea grew inside of him. His stomach turned the moment he stepped into the room and he felt a strange swimming sensation in his head.

_Calm down, Simon,_ he told himself, _you survived a day of this. Don't let it get to you now._

The sight of the open drawers and the papers, recalling the words he'd found within them, caused his heart to speed up and his skin felt so hot that he thought he might be about to break out in prickly heat.

And there it was again. The truth. Right before him. Hitting him like a baseball bat over the head. It choked him up inside.

"_Oh God,"_ he whispered.

He was no closer to deciding what to do than he'd been as he left the basement the day before. His mind had been a whirling, swirling mess of information and he felt like his soul was being torn in two.

The heat of the room was strong and it mixed with the heady daze that the all-powerful truth cast over him, making his head throb and his limbs grow heavy and tired. As he reached for the jumper he felt his eyes roll back into their sockets and a dizziness brought him down to the ground with a powerful thump. Inside that head, that troubled, spinning head, nightmare thoughts began to unfold once again.

~xXx~

Alex paced up and down. She had been pacing for several minutes now. She glanced at the clock, It had been twenty minutes since she'd said goodbye to Keats and she felt pretty sure he must have left the building by now. Quickly she decided to make sure so she grasped the phone on her desk and dialled his extension.

There were a few rings, then voicemail picked up the call.

"_DCI Keats is unavailable, please leave a message."_

Closing her eyes with relief, Alex hung up the phone and took in a deep breath., this was it. The first step of her plan. _Part one of two,_ she thought. Slowly she left the room and started up the rickety staircase, holding on tightly to the side rail in case the nervous energy caused her to fall. She found herself walking faster and faster as she made her way up to CID. She needed to start her plan as soon as possible. The faster she began, the faster she could uncover the secrets that Jim intended on leaving buried and – just maybe – find her key to getting home through the process.

As she arrived in CID there was a pair of eyes upon her. _Victoria._ Alex gulped as she recalled the strange burst of news she'd heard in the taxi the night before. Surely it wasn't the same Victoria Stone? After all, this woman was standing before her very much alive.

She could tell Victoria had noticed her staring by the way she straightened up and looked away awkwardly. There was that look again. What was behind it? Whatever it was, she didn't like it.

This wasn't the time to wonder though. She cleared her throat, straightened her clothes and walked confidently across to her with a smile; another plastered, fake mask.

"Hello," she began, "DI Stone, isn't it?"

Victoria looked a little downcast.

"Yes," she said quietly.

"I was wondering if you could help me," Alex began, "I need the key for the archive room. I have to get some files and Jim's not here."

Victoria stared at her.

"There's nothing down there for your department," she said a little coldly.

"I just need –"

"There really isn't," Victoria told her again, "I fetched all the files myself. There's hardly anything. That department's a dodo."

Alex frowned.

"What do you mean?"

Victoria glanced all around her as though worried that someone might be listening. She leaned a little closer to Alex, tightly clutching the file in her hand with nerves and began,

"What are you doing here, DCI Drake?"

Alex was a little taken aback.

"I… I just wanted the key."

"I mean what are you doing _here?_ Fenchurch West. How did you end up in a sewer like this?"

Alex struggled to find anything to say to that. The words had comes out the blue. Her lips flailed a little, trying and failing to form a coherent thought before she finally said,

"Jim… he offered me the post… he needed someone to…"

"I've heard of you, Ma'am," Victoria interrupted, "I've heard about you and DCI Hunt at Fenchurch East and all the good work you've done. You're respected everywhere. You shouldn't be here."

Alex felt increasingly as though someone was slapping her around the face. With every word Victoria said, another blow was dealt, shocking her into silence. She stood with her mouth agape for a few seconds before finally she asked,

"Why, Victoria? Why shouldn't I be here?"

Victoria's eyes darkened again.

"This isn't a place for people like you," she said quietly, "good people. You deserve better. You deserve…" she closed her eyes and shook her head slowly, "Forget it,. Forget I said anything."

Alex stared in horror as Victoria turned to walk away.

"You can't leave it like that!" she cried, "Victoria, wait –" She placed her hand on her shoulder and Victoria spun around, a sea of flame-coloured curls bouncing over her shoulders. The look on her face was the one she'd flashed at Alex before. Pity. Sadness almost.

"How did you get mixed up with him?" she whispered.

Alex shook her head slowly.

"I don't know what you –"

"I've seen you with him. Hands all over you, marching you through the office, the graffiti in the toilets…"

Alex felt a hot sensation travel across her cheeks as she blushed in horror.

"_What_ graffiti?" she demanded.

"And I know it's not my place to say… it's really not… but I think what he's doing… what you're _both_ doing is so distasteful to his girlfriend."

Alex felt a stab through the heart.

"What girlfriend?"

"Or his partner or wife or lover, or even _ex-_lover, I don't know their situation now," Victoria's mouth ran away with her, "but all I know is that he's supposed to be in the middle of a month's compassionate leave to get over the loss of his unborn baby –"

"_What?"_ Alex's whisper was strained and dry.

"And yet he comes back suddenly with you on his arm, flashing you up and down the station like a trophy."

"What do you mean, _the loss of his unborn baby?"_ Alex's eyes were wide and scared.

"None of us even knew," Victoria told her, "I think I'd seen her here but I thought he was working with her. Short blonde hair, bit of a wild child. I thought she was going to join the department, but he used to behave the same way with her. The same way he does with you."

Alex swallowed. She didn't like where her thoughts were leading her.

"Jim thinks you're just jealous," she whispered.

Victoria gave a genuine laugh of horror.

"He thinks everyone wants him," she cried, "He thinks everyone must want his cock on a plate." Her blunt words shocked Alex and caused her to reel a little. "Ma'am, I couldn't be less interested if I tried. All I'm interested in is getting through one damned awful day after another in this place. Surviving."

Alex stared at her. Her expression was softening now. It was sad and sympathetic. Her tongue ran along the lipstick on her lips.

"And why are _you _here, Victoria?" she asked quietly, "what are you doing in this place? If it's so bad…." She paused, "what did _you _do?"

Victoria's eyes turned downward. She breathed in and let out her breath slowly.

"I don't remember putting in for the transfer," she said quietly, "he says I did. He's got the papers to prove it, too." She gave a sigh that was laden with sadness. "I've had some problems with my memory. I was in a car accident, you see. Apparently it was my first day on the job."

Alex stared at her.

"What happened?" she asked.

Victoria shook her head.

"It's the weirdest thing," she said, "I don't know. I don't remember. I have flashes of something… euphoria… then something else. Something bad. it felt like this crushing pain… in my chest… then I felt like I was falling, and then suddenly my hands were on the wheel of a car. Someone was dragging me out and then," she shook her head again. "I was in a hospital bed and DCI Keats was there, peering at me over his glasses and bringing me grapes, telling me how much he was looking forward to me coming back to work."

"But… but how can that be?" Alex's brow furrowed, "You're –" she almost said _dead_, the news report coming back to her back the enormity of that revelation stuck her like a ten ton weight falling on her head. Victoria was dead. _Dead._ The radio had said so. Was this what Sam Tyler had described as information bleeding through from the outside world? And if so then why was she hearing news reports about a woman she didn't even know? Where were the doctors and nurses around _her_ hospital bed?

If Victoria was dead, then was Alex dead too?

"Ma'am?"

Alex glanced up. Victoria's expression looked concerned.

"I'm fine," Alex whispered, struggling to take in enough oxygen as she breathed, "I'm fine. Victoria…" she closed her eyes for a moment, "why can't you just leave? Transfer? Go somewhere else?"

Victoria looked at her sadly. Her green eyes were laden with tears that wouldn't fall.

"Because he won't let me," she whispered, "no one leaves unless he says so."

A cold dread washed through Alex, reaching every last limb. She took a short gasp of breath as her head began to spin. She needed to act fast. Needed to carry out her plan. It was more important now than ever.

"Victoria," she said quietly, "I really do need that key."

Victoria stared at her. After all she'd said – after all the warnings she'd given her – DCI Drake still wanted to stay? She shook her head slowly, disappointment in her eyes, and marched to her desk where she fished a set of keys out of the drawer.

"I'll warn you, DCI Drake," she began coolly, "the last man who borrowed these keys…" she gave a sigh, "well, I've not seen him since."

Alex swallowed hard.

"The key please," she whispered.

Victoria closed her eyes for a moment and pressed the key into Alex's hand. She looked at her seriously.

"Get out, Ma'am. Get out while you can. Get as far away from here as possible. Just go back to where you came from. Back to where you belong."

Alex stared at her. Victoria's words had shaken her inside more than the redhead would ever know. She took a deep breath.

"Thank you for the key, Victoria," she whispered, "you can get back to work now."

Victoria stared at her. She felt her heart sinking hard. Was Alex really a lost cause? After all she'd said, she thought she _had_ to get through to her but apparently not. With a grim nod she turned away and walked across the office where she could work undisturbed and bury herself from the darkness around her.

Alex felt a tear form in her eye. Where it came from she had no idea, but it was there as large as life. She closed her eyes and murmured to herself not to be so silly, then quickly walked from the room before anyone could see her anxious, tormented expression. Her conversation with Victoria had only gone to back up the fear she felt inside.

With trepidation she came to the door, the one marked 'Archiving'. For what it was worth, it might as well have been marked, "_You don't want to go down there, Alex."_ But she had to. There were no two ways about it. No choices.

She turned the handle and flicked on the light, then quickly moved down the staircase and came to the locked door that had blocked her attempt at unravelling the truth from the day before. She took a deep breath, closed her eyes and gripped the key.

_This is it, Alex. Now or never. Part two of two._

Sliding the key into the lock it turned with a click and the door opened to reveal a world of secrets beyond. One flick of a switch and iris-burning overhead lights lit up, bathing the enclosed space in white. She blinked and rubbed her eyes a little before the contents of the room came clearly into focus and row of boxes, shelves and lockers came into view. Like a child in a sweetshop she walked, mouth agape, along the room, gazing upon the wealth of potential information around her. She looked from one side to the other, trying to work out where to start.

"Eenie, meanie, miney mo, catch a Keats by his squashed toe…" she muttered, choosing a locker at random .She pulled on the handle but the doors didn't budge. "Damn. Hang on…" she checked the key ring Victoria had given her. There were some small numbered keys attached to it too. She looked back at the locker. They seemed to correspond. Taking a chance, she found the right key and unlocked it.

Before her, as the door opened, she found tapes stretching as far as the eye could see. She frowned and muttered. Each had a name on it, many she didn't recognise but one or two she did.

"_Victoria?"_ she whispered.

What kind of a tape was it anyway? Some kind of interview? A sex tape? Secret blackmail material? She glanced around and spotted some video equipment in the corner of the room. Biting her lip she felt a little torn about viewing it. What if it was something really private? What if it _was_ some kind of home made porrno? Well, she supposed she could always turn it back off if there was too much flesh on display.

Unless it was really, _really_ hot.

She closed her eyes and shook her head, feeling slightly annoyed with herself. Her libido had been a little out of control since she arrived in 1995.

Putting all thoughts of anything sexual out of her mind she took the tape and quickly rushed it to the VCR where she slipped it into the machine and switched on the television. As the tape began to play she sat back a little and waited nervously. She didn't know what was going to appear on the screen. She couldn't even hazard a guess.

But the images she saw shook her to her core.


	66. Chapter 33, 2011: Secco

_**A/N: 2 Chapters tonight, then single chapters for the next couple of days!**_

**Chapter Thirty Three: 2011**

Alex wasn't sure what had shocked her most – the fact that someone had made a documentary about Keats, the fact she was watching it or the fact you could watch television over the internet. She stared at the screen, feeling nauseous from the moment it started.

"…Back in nineteen ninety three, PC James Keats was a young cop on the beat," the presenter continued.

Alex swallowed and leaned forward slightly. There was a part of her that wanted to run from the room, or to slam down the top of that damn folding computer and pretend it had never started to play at all, but now she'd caught a glimpse of the documentary she knew she had to carry on. It was too late to back out now.

"Come on, Keats," she whispered, "spill your secrets."

"…fresh-faced, eager and beginning his second year of service," the present continued as she walked along a familiar stretch of road, directly outside Fenchurch East police station, "one night he would go on a raid that would change the course of his life and begin a sequence of events that would put civilians, police officers and detectives alike in his firing line, quite literally. The public was shocked to hear just a few weeks ago how the man responsible for the administration behind the mental health of every officer in the country had attempted to kill one detective in her hospital bed after stalking, drugging and shooting another. In the days that followed, an alarming number of facts came out about the history of this man, this deeply twisted man, and the crimes that he was able to sweep under the carpet. There are questions that need to be answered. How was he put in a position of such power in the first place? How did he get away with his campaign of stalking and violence for so many years and how did his own mental issues lay undetected for so long?"

The scene changed just then and a photograph appeared on the screen; a picture of a younger man, a younger but familiar face.

"_Keats,"_ Alex whispered.

The photograph showed a very different Keats to the one she knew. To the one they _all_ knew. His face had no malevolence. No evilness. Nothing lurking hiding behind those eyes. Just a fresh-faced cop, proudly wearing the uniform and looking as though his life's ambition had been fulfilled.

"But first," the presenter said, "we take a look at the man before the incident. The young man whose life was changed after a horrifying attack left him comatose for four years of his life."

A quick camera shot of some old house that was doubtlessly besieged by idiots with two brain cells apiece who held the brickwork responsible after watching the documentary came on.

"James Keats was born in nineteen seventy to teenage parents. Sixteen year old Laura Keats was cast out of her family in shame after falling pregnant. She had met her boyfriend Jeffrey while both were taking their O Levels. A teenage romance that quickly went sour, Jeffrey's family took in both the young baby James and his mother but the relationship faltered as he entered technical college to learn a trade in catering and the stressful life brought out his temper. When she was eighteen. Laura moved to East London with the young James Keats where they made a new life together. James knew little of his father growing up and never heard from him again."

Alex bit her lip as she watched on. There was a part of her that didn't want to hear about a tragic childhood. She didn't want any read on to feel sorry for him. She didn't even _want _to hear about the human being he used to be. She hated thinking that there was another side to him. It was easier to think of him as a monster than to believe a man could cause so much suffering.

"Embracing their new start, Laura and her son thrived, with her finding work at a local florist and him starting school and doing well. His intelligence saw him at the top of the class and even skipping a year when he was ten years old. But the recurring theme for him through his childhood was a feeling that he had to protect his mother. He saw himself as the man of the household and desperately wanted to fulfil that role. It was this onus on safety and protection that saw him becoming interested in joining the police force. When he was twenty one years old he finally saw his dream realised."

A photograph of Keats on his first day of duty appeared; smart, smiling, innocent. Human. It was like watching a stranger, Alex thought to herself. She couldn't equate the man she saw on the screen with the monster that had caused terrible atrocities through two worlds and endless time zones.

"But the dream was to be short-lived," the presenter said grimly, "when one night PC James Keats was one of five officers who attended a drugs raid and faced a brutal attack. His superior officer made a severe error of judgement in sending his team in without awaiting backup and Keats was helpless to fight off one of the men, who had armed himself with a cricket bat before taking a swing at the young PC's head. A second blow later and Keats found himself in a vegetative state."

Alex found herself doing something she hadn't done since her teenage years. She started chewing her fingernails. How terribly nervous and anxious she felt just watching the programme.

And now a close-up on the presenter. Alex didn't especially like the woman. She didn't know who she was but she seemed a little snidey and she was not particularly connecting with the subject matter. It was just another story to her. To Alex, to Gene, to Simon and Robin and Kim, this was _life._

"That could so easily have been the end of the story," she continued grimly, "Keats had severe injuries to his head, his skull was severely cracked and he suffered swelling on the brain. For several days his survival looked in doubt but he survived an operation to reduce the swelling on the brain and his condition slowly became more stable as the weeks went by. However, it was looking increasingly unlikely that the young man would ever come out of his comatose state."

The camera zoomed right in on the eyes and nose of the presenter for some reason, scaring Alex beyond belief. She swore she could see a large bogey peering out of her nostril.

"And then, when he had been in this state for two years, a further tragedy struck. His devoted mother, who had sat by his bedside almost every day, suffered a severe and fatal heart attack. An undetected cardiac condition led to her early death and the cop was left alone in the world. Despite some attempts to trace surviving family members his grandparents were no longer living and his father could not be found."

Alex swallowed. This wasn't what she had been expecting. Not in the slightest.

"For four years James lay in his hospital room," the presenter now walked along a clinical corridor, a patient keeling over and dying in the background just to illustrate that it was still in working order, "until one day, quite unexpectedly, he showed signs of increased brain activity and within a week had regained consciousness. At this stage it was unclear what level of control he would regain in his body – would he be able to talk? To walk? To lead a normal life? It wasn't for many years that the answers to those questions would come forth."

Alex closed her eyes and hung her head slightly. A tear began to fall from her eye as she recalled those weeks in hospital, trying to regain control of her body. She was lucky. She was damn lucky.

"With no family, Keats had little support. The few friends he had - both in the force and out - had moved on and a team of medical experts, therapists and nurses became his only companions for the next five years. But eventually, defying all the odds, he slowly regained his speech, his motor skills improved and eventually he learned to walk again. It took five long years of recovery but, in two thousand and two, Keats returned to the force, to the job he'd dreamed of doing for so long. However, the job was no longer the 'ideal' it had been in his mind."

Alex drew in a deep breath as a moment of black appeared where the adverts had originally been shown when the documentary had been on television. She almost wished there were adverts now. She could do with watching someone trying to force her into buying cosmetics or coffee just to take her mind off of what was coming up. The first part of the documentary had been easy-streets. It was all downhill from here.

"No longer able to go out on the beat, PC Keats, or 'Jim' as he now preferred to be called, found himself behind a desk, signing papers, ticking boxes, taking calls and filing. This was not the career he wanted and it was not the life he aspired to lead. His frustration at finding himself stuck behind a desk led him to lash out, sometimes physically and sometimes verbally, at colleagues and members of the public alike. A number of disciplinary hearings followed but with the blame for his attack laying squarely at the feet of the force that he had wanted to be a part of so deeply his superiors felt to blame and, instead of receiving proper disciplinary action, Jim was moved from department to department, post to post, always looking for the role that would suit him down to the ground but never managing to find it. Sometimes he would be employed in a post for a matter of days. Sometimes a few months,. But there would always be incidents and allegations that would see him moved on again."

Alex began to feel a churning in her stomach. She could well imagine the kinds of allegations and incidents of which the annoying lady spoke.

A woman appeared in silhouette with a caption saying '_Actor's Voice',_ with a dubbed soundtrack from someone still too scared to speak out about their brush with him.

"One day he just went crazy in the station. I think someone put too much sugar in his tea and that was enough to set him off. There was broken furniture, smashed crockery, and the screaming… never heard anything like it before. It took three people to calm him down and restrain him."

All too soon, the annoying presenter was back on the screen.

"Was this the appearance of a genetically volatile temperament inherited from his father? Or had the damage to his brain and years spent in a deep, prolonged coma caused such difficulties reintegrating that he couldn't interact with the rest of the world as he used to? It was impossible to know and, thanks to the cover-up that took place, this was never even looked into. Instead of helping Jim he was passed around again from one position to another. Until," her face grew extremely downcast, "in two thousand and six, after slowly climbing to the position of Detective Chief Inspector Jim Keats was placed in the position of Head of Administration for the mental health of the police force country-wide."

Alex shuddered. Just the thought of it sent her cold.

"How could anyone put him in that position?" she whispered as the documentary continued.

"Finally it seemed he had found a position that suited him and for a year it looked as though Jim Keats had finally taken back his life from the terrible attack that had come so close to killing him. But soon after he'd passed his first year in the post some unusual allegations were brought against him. Phone tapping, entrapment, perverting the course of justice and, more dangerously, GBH and attempted manslaughter. Every last one dropped. A pattern was emerging but no one was doing anything about it."

The shot changed to one of a familiar location which made Alex retch. The inside of Keats's now derelict flat as it was back after his death, a little less damage but disturbing none the less.

"Jim Keats had been collecting files on coma patients country-wide. His obsession with others who had been through his experience reached dangerous proportions. It is thought that this was an attempt to feel less isolated from the rest of the population, to find others who had shared his experience, but inside his twisted mind this obsession turned to danger as his attitude towards those people led to violence, threats and stalking."

The camera panned along a wall that Alex had seen for herself just the day before.

"Just a few weeks ago, Jim's obsession reached a deadly high culminating in the stalking, drugging and shooting of Detective Chief Inspector Simon Shoebury before the attempted murder of Detective Inspector Alex Drake, a patient who has been in a comatose state for the past two years.

Alex had seen the footage before. She'd seen the CCTV tape from her hospital room when it played on Keats's video, but she'd blocked out so much of it. Watching it again on the screen chilled her to the bone. She desperately wished Gene was there to hold her hand. She could hardly stand to watch any further. She felt like a child watching a horror movie through tightly-clenched fingers as she forced herself to stay where she was.

"DCI Shoebury fought him off and saved not only his own life but Drake's too. The death of Jim Keats has left more riddles and questions than it has provided answers. Police chiefs are facing questions relating to how someone in such a…"

The picture froze and announced it was buffering which made Alex frown, partly because she didn't know what buffering was and partly because she wanted to know what the annoying woman was going to say but as the video started to resume it flickered and disappeared.

"What?" she cried. She leaned back a little. The screen was blank. How the hell was she supposed to get the little telly back on it now? Had the battery run down? It seemed to be plugged in. With a sigh she leaned forward to try pressing a few buttons but before her hand could touch a key a full-screen picture appeared. This time there was no annoying presenter. There was no wall of Simon pictures. There was no _Dispatches_ logo, no ad break and no sign of Jim Keats.

There was herself, sitting in a car.

She was humming a line of a song; muttering it under her breath as though trying to place it. But before either the Alex on the screen of the Alex watching from the kitchen table could work out what it was, a menacing face with a gun appeared from behind her.

"_Relax, Alex, just drive."_

With eyes bolted wide and her mouth open in distress, Alex had no option other than to stare at the screen before her and watch the images that should have never made it onto that laptop. Where it was coming from, she couldn't understand. But her eyes were held captive nonetheless.

"_Layton,"_ she whispered.

As the images played out, one after another, tears formed and fell without restraint. The events that Alex watched filled in gaps and bridged the path between worlds. And, when it was over, there was one thought and one thought only on her mind.

"I have to get home," she whispered, "_now." _she took in a jagged breath,_ "_before I lose my chance."


	67. Chapter 33, 1995: Perdendosi

**A/N: The second of tonight's two chapters**

**Chapter Thirty Three: 1995**

With pale skin and sunken eyes, this was not the Victoria Stone that Alex had come to know. Oh, the trademark red hair and movie star good looks were there, but they were encased in decaying life; a person who had lost her way, desperately searching for that life to come back into her.

Alex watched the screen as the familiar woman crashed into a bathroom and sat down hard on the closed toilet, her limbs shaking and her eyes desperate. Out of the bag came the kit, not the first time, didn't think it would be the last either. _Needle, desperation, got to find that vein. Come on… need to… fucking hell, come on…_

And then: in. _At last_. Sending the wave of pleasure throughout her body. The euphoria, oh – so wonderful, so exquisite, such a relief – those desperate feelings of withdrawal slipping away.

_Lay back, enjoy it. Savour the moment._ Oh, so perfect. _Lap up every last second of this feeling._

Throughout her body the evil essence travelled, teasing her with euphoric pleasure, already knowing that the time before those awful feelings of withdrawal would come back again grew less with each hit. With each and every time. She had the devil in her veins.

And as the minutes passed, the feeling started. There, in her chest.

Aching. Throbbing. At first she barely noticed but it grew more insistent.

Her heart… strangled, slowing… what _was_ this?

Had she taken too much? It was no more than usual.

Was it…. It _had_ to be 'good'. It couldn't have been bad. He wouldn't do that. He'd never give her anything he didn't know was clean.

But sometimes…

Sometimes when she needed…

She took.

She just took without asking, and…

The pain was getting worse now, crushing her inside. Her hands clutched her chest. Was this a heart attack? Had her heart stopped still in her chest? Had it finally slowed right down so severly it couldn't start again?

Or was there something there? An impurity? Something mixed that had seized her life from her…

Her life.

Fading.

Leaving her.

_Oh God… how did I come to this?_

_I was only doing what they asked me to do. I had to prove myself to them. I needed to prove I was on their side. That's all they asked me to do…_

…_So I did._

_I had to keep up the pretence… or it would all be over…_

_But I liked it. I liked it too much._

As her body fell and her life ebbed away, Alex watched through tears until she could bear it no more and pounded at the eject button. It took some time before the tape came out the machine and by then she could hardly see through tears. She wiped them crossly, smearing eyeliner down her face and pushed the tape angrily back in the locker. It didn't seem right. It just didn't seem _right._

This didn't make sense. _Nothing_ made sense.

She sat on the floor with her head in her hands, crying for the soul of a woman who just didn't know what she could have done so wrong. Was this fair? Was any of this fair? The more she looked for answers, the more questions she began to find instead.

Finally removing her hands from her face, her eyes were cast downward. From the tiny gap beneath the cabinet on which the video and television stood she could see the slightest hint of a video tape poking out. Her curiosity began to grow and she reached out with one finger to attempt to turn the tape around to a more convenient angle so that she could pull it out but it seemed to slip further out of her reach.

"Come _on,"_ she muttered, trying once again. This time it seemed to bend to her will and slowly, little by little, she convinced it to make its way into daylight.

"Aha!" she said triumphantly, but the moment she picked up the tape and saw the name on the label her moment of triumph was over.

"_Alex._"

The moment she read her name, her heart ached so badly she might as well have taken that final hit herself.

~xXx~

"What's the time?"

The question caught Kim a little off-guard.

"Um," she glanced at the clock, "Nine thirty. Why."

Gene looked grim.

"It's half past jumper, that's what it is," he muttered, "he should have been back by now." He stood up and marched toward the door.

"What? Where are you going?" Kim called after him.

"It's all quiet on the Shoebury front and I don't think that can be a good sign," she heard Gene mumble.

"Fine," Kim sighed, She continued to look over some papers but the ringing of the phone disturbed her. She sighed and lifted it on the third ring. "DS Stringer." There was silence on the line which she found strange indeed. She frowned. "Hello?" A rude click suggested someone had decided they didn't wish to speak to her after all so she hung up with a sigh. "Fine. Your loss. I might have had something interesting to say," she mumbled.

~xXx~

Could he ever escape the nightmare? Simon was starting to think it would plague him forever. Here he was again, in pursuit of Keats, running after him, determined not to let him go. He screamed his name in anger, again and again but he didn't stop, not for anything. Simon pushed himself on, ran as fast as his legs would take him and his determination grew with every step but just as he reached Keats and felt sure he had him in his grasp a bullet once again fired right through him and struck flesh behind him. There was a scream, a flash of blonde hair and a body crumpling to the floor before he found himself himself in a car.

The smell of the petrol was overwhelming this time. His hands were on the wheel, griping it tightly with fear. The road outside… it looked familiar but he couldn't quite place it in his mind.

His heart jolted, He'd been here before. He knew this part of the dream. He knew if he turned…

He glanced to one side. There he was; Robin. _Oh,_ this was as close as he'd come to being able to reach out and touch him. This felt so much more real than the other dreams he'd had. This felt as though it could come alive, straight from his mind. Right there and then he yearned for Robin more than ever. He opened his mouth to speak, just desperate to tell him how much he loved him, how much he longed to be with him again but a sharp blow to the face tore him away from his dream and put him squarely back in the depths of the basement.

His eyes flew open in shock and a gasp came from within him. The sensation of a hard slap on his face still throbbing, he saw Gene looming large before him.

"What the hell was that for?" he mumbled, rubbing his jaw to make sure everything was still in place.

"This is yer half past jumper wake-up call," Gene told him, "should have known you were going to have a little lay down again." He began to drag Simon to his feet, "I warned you, you've got a weaker constitution than a moth in a vat of acid."

"I haven't even touched your scotch," Simon mumbled, only half aware that he was being dragged up the stairs. He tried to walk but he couldn't seem to hold his weight up so reluctantly he relented and allowed Gene to drag him to CID, mumbling complaints every step of the way.

No one was more surprised by the lumbering mess than Kim as Gene lugged him into the office.

"Bloody hell, what's happened?" she cried.

Gene puffed and panted under the strain.

"Take an arm, Stringer" he told her, "he might seem weedy but he's heavier than he looks."

"Where do you want him?" asked Kim, moving quickly over to help.

"I'm not a bloody grocery delivery," Simon mumbled.

"My office," said Gene.

They managed to heave Simon through the room, the door of the office happily opening by itself to help the, out

"Where now?" Kim asked, in full belief that her own legs were about to give way.

"My chair," said Gene.

Kim looked at him in disbelief.

"_Your_ chair?" she asked. In the months she'd spent in Gene's world so far she had never once seen Gene allow another person to sit in that chair. Not even Alex. In fact, she had long suspected he had it rigged to electrocute anyone else who dared to park their posterior upon it. She wondered if he had patented some kind of butt-cheek detecting device.

It was with some relief that they finally dumped Simon into the seat and Kim attempted to straighten up.

"I think I need traction," she mumbled.

Gene turned to her.

"Give me some time with Noel Edmonds," he said.

Kim hesitated. There was a dark look on Gene's face.

"Aright" she said quietly, "…everything OK?"

"Go and get something pierced or more doodles on yer arm," Gene told her.

Kim glanced at Simon. He was looking a little more lucid now but Gene's words had brought an anxious look to his face. Eventually she nodded slowly and left the room.

Simon stared at Gene. He wasn't sure what was coming but he didn't think it was going to be a conversation he wanted to have. Gene's eyes bored into him as he slumped back in the chair.

"What's down there, Simon?"

Simon swallowed.

What do you mean?"

"In Jimbo's lair," Gene slowly ran his tongue around his dry lips. "You're not going floor surfing for no reason, Shoebury. You've not been raiding me scotch, you've got food in yer belly and despite yer girly screaming you did sleep last night. So something must have set you off."

Simon shook his head slowly.

"It's just the heat."

"Bollocks."

"It's so hot down there –"

"You only went down to get the Jumper of Doom," cried Gene. He gave a frustrated sigh. "Simon, Bolly used to have funny turns all the time. Every other day someone had to scrape 'er off the floor. She was having visions and voices and weird bollocks that wouldn't be out of place in one of yer sci-fi shows." He reached for his flask but didn't open it. "You know when it stopped?"

Simon stared back.

"When?"

Gene sighed.

"When the truth came out," he said.

"What do you mean?"

"When we started being honest," Gene told him, "I stopped blocking this place out and she stopped covering up her past. She still heard voices, got messages, just every now and then something got through but she cut out all the floor surfing." He stared at Simon. "So. What did you find?"

Simon felt something burning in his chest, the pain of knowledge. The burden was growing heavier and eating away at his strength.

"Who says I found anything?" he asked weakly.

"Yer eyes do," Gene said crossly. He saw Simon hang his head just a little. "Whatever it is, you've got to tell me." His voice dropped a little. "I don't want you going the same way as Sam bloody Tyler."

Simon tried to smile but the corners of his mouth hardly moved. God, how could the truth be so hard to bear. He found his gaze travelling up a little untilit finally met Gene's. He swallowed.

"God, it's just…" he struggled to force anything out. The words were too hard to say.

Gene fixed his stare on Simon.

"Spit it out. Or I'll have to extract it out of you with yer prisey-open things." Before Simon could say a word or Gene could exact his threat the phone rang. Gene stared at it for a moment, unsure whether it was worth answering or not, but the thought of it ringing away while he tried to talk to Simon brought him to snatch it up. It was far better, he thought, to tell the caller to piss off then leave it ringing.

"What?" he barked down the line.

There was a moment of silence. Then, there was a laugh.

"I see you've been on my case again, Gene."

Gene's heart darkened by seven shades.

"Jimbo," The uttering of that name had a profound effect on Simon who sat bolt upright, his eyes wide and anxious.

"What?" he whispered.

The laughter on the line rang through Gene's head.

"Thanks for helping me with my filing, Gene," Keats said, "save me a lot of work in the long run. Nice of you to tidy up my papers for me."

Gene's face resembled that of someone who had been partaking in a lemon-sucking contest.

"Well, we aim to please," he said, "we stopped short of cleaning yer bath though."

"You weren't very thorough then, were you?" Keats's smirk could almost be heard down the phone line.

"Well you didn't pay us very well," Gene told him, "going rate's five pound an hour."

"Oh, Gene," Keats laughed, "the bath wasn't the only spot you missed, was it?"

"Don't tell me I forgot to clean behind yer fridge too," Gene sighed, wondering whether there was any point to this. It was as close to receiving a prank call as he'd ever had. He felt they were three lines away from '_Is your refrigerator running?'_

"Can't believe you haven't looked through it yet," Keats told him, "thought that's the first place you would have checked."

"I'm not interested in yer Wham merchandise," Gene told him, "now, if there's no reason for this call other than to probe me on me cleaning routine then kindly piss off back to barbecue land. I'm busy."

"Oh, OK," said Keats, I'll keep it _brief."_ He said that final word so pointedly that Gene knew something was wrong.

"What _aren't_ you saying, Jimbo?" he asked.

There was a laugh.

"Like I said," Keats told him, "I know you've been on my _case."_

Gene hesitated. Then the phone was thrown down.

"Jimbo's case," he turned to Simon.

"What?"

"Where is it?"

"Where's what?"

"The briefcase we took from him yesterday."

Simon had quite forgotten about that. He frowned.

"Under Kim's desk, I think," he said, "why?"

In response Gene marched from the room, the doors opening and closing of their own accord. Simon felt anxiety creep into his flesh and bones. He watched and waited for Gene's return, and just a moment later it came. Gene clutched the case in his hand and set it down.

"Combination," he mumbled.

Simon hesitated.

"Only one possibility," he said.

Gene nodded and lined up the numbers to 666. There was a click and then a cry of warning from Simon.

"Hang on, Gene, there could be a bomb or something in there!"

"Relax, Shoebury," sighed Gene, "don't think even Jimbo thought that far ahead." He allowed the case to spring open a little, then fully opened the lid. Their anxious faces peered at the contents. There was an apple, a chocolate bar and a half-finished banana and crisp sandwich. "Who packed yer lunchbox then, Jimbo?" Gene mumbled. He glanced over the rest of the contents, including an obligatory autograph, but sitting in amongst the contents was a video tape.

He knew. Inside, he knew. This was the reason for Jimbo's little message.

Without hesitation he picked it up and slipped it into the video slot on his combi TV.

"Gene, what is it?" Simon asked.

"Whatever it is, Jimbo wants me to see it so I'm not going go disappoint him," said Genre.

The screen cleared as the tape began to play, and all at once Gene's world began to crumble around him.

~xXx~

"_Relax, Alex, just drive."_

Alex sat staring at the screen. The moment the picture came up she regretted putting her tape in the video recorder. The moment she saw herself in the car, singing that line under her breath, she knew that she should have left it well alone. But she hadn't. She'd made the choice to watch it and it was too late to go back on her decision now.

She swallowed hard as the events she remembered so clearly played out before her. Layton in the car; the gun, forcing her to drive, taking her to the barge. She watched Layton as he made that call to person or persons unknown and did not receive from them whatever reaction he'd been hoping for.

"_What could my parents possibly have to do with any of this?"_ she watched her terrified image ask, _"They've been dead a long time."_

Inside she felt a deep, dark heaviness. _What a strange thing to say,_ she thought. Under pressure, she didn't always keep the coolest head. She was learning that about herself.

She couldn't help but focus on Layton's scraggly hair and unkempt appearance as she watched him with that manic look in his eyes.

"_I had an empire, yeah?"_ she heard his voice, _"Back in the day. I had connections. I had dealers on every street corner."_

"_And things went wrong? Do you want to talk about that?" _

Alex sighed and shook her head slowly as she watched on. Of _course_ he didn't want to talk about that. Were her negotiating skills really so poor? How had her training let her down so badly?

She watched as he put on_ those_ sunglasses. Somehow they had haunted her in all her nightmares of Layton, especially the ones that also featured Russell Brand. He always seemed to be wearing them. Or Russell was. Sometimes they would mud-wrestle to see who got to wear them this time. Alex didn't like her head in 1995. It was full of thoughts she wanted to chase away.

"_You... you feel trapped,"_ she watched herself mumbling, stuttering, hardly able to get a word out, _"I mean, I can understand that. Those officers were itching for a fatality outcome…"_

_Bang._

The gasp that left Alex's lips as she saw that gunshot played out before her almost killed her all over again inside. The sight of her body falling as the bullet penetrated her skull brought a pain to her heart and she struggled for breath.

"Oh god," she breathed, "oh my _god…"_

All the times she'd relived it… all the times she'd dreamed it and flashed back to it… seeing it played out before her made it all the more real.

The sight of Layton walking away from the scene and her body lying still on the ground seemed to go on forever. Alex wondered if that _was _going to go on forever. Just a 'forever' tape of that; of her body lying on the ground, blood seeping from her wound

Without warning there was a crackle of static and the tape started to roll, as though a TV show had finished and the last programme recorded on the tape was about to break through. She frowned as she watched a sight she hadn't been expecting to appear – herself, in a hospital room, doctors and nurses gathered around her, and… and _her._

Molly!

"_My beautiful girl,"_ Alex's hands rose to her face, a gasp of shock and delight. Oh, how she had missed her. How desperately she needed to get home.

_"Mummy!"_

_"Give her some room, Molly, she needs time to come round."_

_"But I saw her! She opened her eyes!"_

What was going on? Alex couldn't understand. How could she be waking up when she was still _there?_

The doctors were talking to her, saying something about dropping the dosage, but she didn't really take it in.

Then, there was a bleep.

_"Mum?"_

Another bleep, loud and chilling, then a long, endless tone

_"She's arresting!"_

"What? No!" Alex cried, leaning forward and thumping the screen, "No, that can't _be…_ for god's sake, someone get the crash team!"

_"Mum? Mum!"_ Molly screamed over and over again.

Alex drew back from the screen in horror and could only watch on in silence as the team around the bed tried dramatically to revive her. She clasped her hands to her head, desperately praying for them to get her heart started again. She could almost feel the shocks of electricity pulsating through her body.

She held her breath, hardly able to bear waiting for an answer and then…

_Beep… beep…_

"_She's back… we got her back… nice work, everyone…"_

The screen flickered and faded in and out as she watched. Surely there was no more. There _couldn't_ be more…

But, oh – there it was. The step too far that her mind couldn't quite comprehend.

There she was, standing in the doorway of a hospital room. She certainly wasn't the patient now. And _oh,_ she had that awful hair, those terrible brassy highlights, and those clothes… looked like she was just about ready to join the studio audience of The Girly Show. Who was that standing beside her?

Oh _great_, it was _him_, wasn't it? Gene Hunt.

The other figures in the room were less familiar… a man and a woman that she'd seen a few times. And one last figure, but his face was shrouded by darkness. As she watched, the dark figure began to speak but his words made so little sense to her.

_"I'm looking forward to welcoming Robin to the team. Oh sorry - I forgot, you'd opted out of my team, isn't that right? Transfer denied."_ She watched as he popped up his collar while the other man she barely recognised became angrier and more anxious. _"Well, never mind. You won't want to be around to watch what happens to Robin. It's probably best you stay in blissful ignorance over on the other side. Never mind, Simon. At least you can be sure Robin will be warm at night."_

_Simon._ That's right… he was one of those Fenchurch East people that thought he knew her. What was he doing in the room and who was Robin?

Whatever the answers to those questions, the other man's words caused him to react in fury.

_"You bastard!"_ he screamed, throwing a punch towards him as he ran in his direction. The punch missed, but in the commotion the other man stepped out of the shadows and revealed his face for Alex to see.

It was like a slap to her beautiful face.

"_Jim."_

Her heart stopped, just for a moment. It seemed impossible. She couldn't comprehend what she was seeing.

"No, no, no…" she whispered, begging silently for what she was watching not to be true.

But her silent pleas went unheard as the action unfolded before her and Keats grabbed his threw him backwards, then made a move she'd never have expected. Into the air he raised a gun, firing a shot at Simon. Alex gave a gasp of horror and threw her hands to her mouth once again in shock, expecting Simon to fall down dead to the ground but the bullet seemed to have passed right through him.

As anger and fury flashed across Keats's face he fired three shots randomly into the air then fled out of the window almost in the blink of an eye. His callous actions disturbed Alex deeply but not more so than the sight of herself with a bullet in the brain, sliding to the ground; the shot an echo of her path to this strange land.

"_No!"_ her scream was loud and long, her throat raw and her voice full of the emotions that were scrambling for supremacy inside her scrambled head.

She found herself stumbling backwards, repelled by the horror of what she had seen. Her mind couldn't comprehend it and her heart couldn't cope with it. Tears were falling now; hot, wild tears that she couldn't hold back for anyone. She cried and screamed as events on the screen continued – the shocked faces around her, the two relative strangers taking up the chase and Gene; leaning over her, the expression on his face, the cry that held such deep emotion that she could almost feel her own heart breaking as she heard it.

_Oh my god,_ her thoughts screamed to her.

In that split second, she got it.

She _got it._

"I had a life here."

The words escaped her lips before she could stop them. The revelation took the breath from her body and the strength from her bones as she stared and trembled.

She had a life here. A job. A relationship, friends, colleagues…

"And he took all that away from me," she whispered, staring at the screen.

The full truth began to dawn on her. She had been taken in by evil and trapped by a charming man with nothing but darkness on the inside. The man she'd seen as her saviour was the man who put that bullet in her head. The man who'd picked her up from the pavement, sent her into an emotional spin, shaped and moulded into someone she thought she wanted to be – that was the same man who had brought her to 1995.

Staring at the screen another realisation hit her.

"She's out there," she whispered, "living my life."

As she watched and stared at the screen the picture broke and crackled and just for a split second a strange image appeared. It looked almost as though someone had switched their webcam on and the picture was filtering through. It took a few seconds before she realised who the face was.

"Oh my _god,"_ she whispered, "that's me…"

And there she was; another 'her'. Sitting before a laptop, staring in fear at the images that played out to her.

But almost straight away the picture cut out and scrolled again. Alex thought – even hoped - it was the end of the tape but behind the crackles and sparkles an image stared to appear. The picture scrolled and spun for a few seconds longer before it finally cleared, held fast and the sound returned.

"_Just a few weeks ago, Jim's obsession reached a deadly high culminating in the stalking, drugging and shooting of Detective Chief Inspector Simon Shoebury before the attempted murder of Detective Inspector Alex Drake, a patient who has been in a comatose state for the past two years."_

"_What?"_ Alex's mouth fell open as she stared. What the hell was she watching now? Some kind of documentary? It seemed ridiculous but she couldn't think what else it could be.

Two _years?_ She'd been in a coma for two _years?_ And there was that _Simon_ again. Who the hell was he and why did he keep appearing?

"_DCI Shoebury fought him off and saved not only his own life but Drake's too. The death of Jim Keats has left more riddles and questions than it has provided answers. Police chiefs are facing questions relating to how someone in such a vital position – someone who was responsible for approving every mental health report and who had access to hundreds of thousands of files containing very personal documentation, could have been placed in a position of such power."_

A burning sense of nausea rose inside her as she watched one person after another recount their experiences at the hands of Jim Keats in the twenty-first century. There were people he'd threatened, people he'd attacked, people he'd set up and people who – it seemed – he simply took a dislike to and victimised.

"_But it wasn't until he attempted to take the life of these two fellow detectives that the riddle of Jim Keats began to come undone,"_ the presenter concluded.

A slow motion clip began to play. Keats with a gun; firing at Simon, heading for Alex to suffocate her and Simon's desperate fight to save her life.

That evil man, that vile, putrid figure with a lack of humanity had already put a bullet in her head – now he was trying to kill her in her hospital room?

She panicked. She had to get out. Had to run, to get as far away as possible. She didn't care where, she just had to do it – but as she spun around to make her escape it was already too late.

Two feet appeared on the lower stairs, followed a moment later by the rest of Jim Keats. Before she could get her bearings he was standing right before her, his gaze fixed upon her eyes.

"Alex," he said. His voice was stilted and disenchanted, "you do disappoint me. I told you not to get lost and end up in archiving by mistake." His expression changed into a smirk. "Had a good look, have you?" he sneered; "found anything of interest?" He took a step towards her and leaned in menacingly close. "Anything you'd giver your life to see?"

Alex knew it was over. She knew_ everything_ was over. She'd watched death and near-death several times over in the space of the last few minutes. Now, it seemed that a more permanent death for her might be imminent after all.

_**~xXx~**_

_**Thank you so much to everyone who is still reading and reviewing – I really appreciate your feedback, support and most of all enjoyment of this story! You are awesome! I know this has been a long ride – I am sorry for the length of it, but it is two stories in one so it's been unavoidable. Nevertheless I hope you are still enjoying the journey -x-**_

_**I have added portraits of Robin and Kim to my new Livejournal if you'd like to see what they look like – the link can be found on my profile but if you can't find it from there my LJ username is: fenchurch-misty**_


	68. Chapter 34, 2011: Acceso

_**A/N: So I was clearly talking out my backside again! 2 chapters tonight and THEN single chapters! **_

**Chapter Thirty Four: 2011**

With trembling hands and a scream that she was barely able to hold back she tore herself from the chair and raced out of the kitchen. She had to get away. She couldn't stand it any longer. As she left the room she tripped over a surprise pair of legs and went hurtling across the floor. A distressed cry belonging to the legs rang out and her own scream of shock joined it before she realised whose legs she'd tripped over.

"_Robin?"_

A slightly pained and shocked Robin mumbled confirmation of his identity.

"Are you OK, Alex?"

Alex rubbed her knees. They'd picked up a bit of a carpet burn but otherwise she seemed pretty much unscathed.

"I think so," she said, "Jesus, Robin, what the hell are you doing laying on the floor out here?"

"I was waiting outside the door in case you needed me," Robin said, a little offended, "that documentary's not nice."

"Neither's tripping over your legs and flying across the room," Alex pointed out. She sighed as she pulled herself over to the wall and leaned back against it beside him. She took several deep breaths to calm her racing pulse, then finally found the ability to speak again. "You didn't have to wait here, you know. I would have been fine."

"You were running out the kitchen," Robin pointed out.

Alex bit her lip. Her argument was falling apart when Robin had already seen the evidence to the contrary.

"It wasn't the documentary I was running away from," she said quietly.

Robin looked at her in confusion.

"No?"

Alex shook her head.

"Something strange happened, Robin," she whispered. She glanced around to make sure they hadn't woken Kim or Kelly in their tangle. "The documentary stopped working. It went to a buffet or something."

"Buffering," Robin corrected.

Alex nodded. That sounded familiar.

"And then the screen went blank," she continued, "and something else started playing instead." She bit her lip.

"What was it?" Robin whispered.

Alex closed her eyes for a moment.

"I saw myself," she whispered, "being shot. By Layton. Two thousand and eight."

Robin stared at her as though she'd just told him she had a tree growing out of her backside.

"What?" he gasped, "but... but that's not possible. What was it, CCTV footage?"

Alex shook her head slowly.

"It was just… just as though I was there. Watching everything," she whispered, "there he was, in the car behind me, pointing his gun at me. Then he marched me to a barge and started talking about my parents… the Prices…" she sighed and closed her eyes, trying to recall the details. "He was talking on a phone. A small one, like you had. I don't know who he was calling but he told them he had her… I mean me…" she shook her head a little. This was a bit confusing for her. "Whatever he wanted from them… they weren't going to give to him."

"What do you mean?" Robin frowned.

"It could have been blackmail, maybe?" Alex really didn't know, "said he was going to tell me the truth about my parents, but he didn't. After he ended the call he put on some sunglasses and shot me. A bullet… just straight into my head." She closed her eyes and gave a little gasp as she thought about the horrific images that followed. "That wasn't the end of it, Robin."

Robin looked at her with concern. Her expression held layers of torment. He reached for her hand as he began to wish he'd never given her the laptop to watch the documentary in the first place.

"What did you see?" he whispered.

Alex took a deep breath. She closed her eyes and looked away.

"There was a flash of something… where I woke up here. But then I faded away again. And then he shot me."

"Layton?"

"Keats."

Robin closed his eyes and nodded. He'd almost forgotten about that.

"Oh God, Alex," he couldn't even comprehend the horror of watching all of that in one go, especially not after an hour of Jim Keats footage on 4-OD.

"We were in a hospital room," she whispered, "and he said…" she hesitated. Her eyes flickered to Robin. "He said something about you."

A cold dread arrived upon Robin's shoulders and slowly travelled through the rest of his body where it ended up as a boulder in the pit of his stomach.

"Me?" he whispered. He felt himself start to shake. "What did he want with _me" _He thought back to his brief time in 1995. He'd shunned Keats back then and his attempt to get him onside to bring down Gene and Fenchurch East, even after being gifted the famous tape. By refusing to assist him had he sealed his own fate for the future, or was this some other malevolent plan that he had yet to learn about? He recalled Kim's warning when she had delivered the letter on New Year's Eve. Keats was on the warpath for his soul. Was _that_ what this was about?

"I don't know," Alex said quietly, "I didn't really understand… but _God,_ it was awful, Robin – he fired his gun and I just went down… just dropped, like I was dead."

"Oh God, Alex," Robin didn't know what to say.

"But it got worse," Alex looked at him and he noticed tears in her eyes.

"_Worse?"_ he wasn't sure how it possibly could.

Alex nodded.

"I saw her," she whispered.

"Who?"

"_Her._ Me," Alex sighed and shook her head slowly, "whoever it is… her, in my body. The_ other_ me. She's… my _hair…_" she closed her eyes, "she's cut my hair, and she's dressed…" she could hardly explain it, "it's like she's gone back to the eighties, but she's there in the nineties… right where I left." She hesitated, "she was watching a video. I saw her, watching the screen, and it was the documentary."

"The what?"

"The one about Keats."

"But… but that was only made last year," Robin flailed, "how could she have been watching it fifteen years ago?"

"How could _I_ have just watched two bullets fly into my brain?" Alex countered, "I don't know how, but she was watching it, Robin. And then…"

Robin's fears increased as Alex's face contorted with terror.

"What?" be whispered.

Alex's eyes were wide as she stared at him.

"_He_ appeared."

This time, Robin didn't need to ask who.

"_Keats,"_ he breathed.

Alex nodded.

"He arrived ehind her," she whispered, "and then…" her voice started to waiver, "the screen filled with stars and then it went blank." She shook her head fiercely. "We're running out of time, Robin. _She's_ running out of time. He found her watching that programme – there's no telling what he might do. And the stars…"

Robin looked at her seriously.

"What do the stars mean, Alex?"

Alex bit her lip.

"It's almost game over," she whispered.

Robin closed his eyes for a second then, as though that action drew his courage together, he took in a deep breath and nodded.

"We won't run out of time, Alex," he said, "I promise. Come on." He got to his feet and pulled her up.

"Where are we going?"

"It's almost four now. We'll wake the others up and get moving. The sooner we get there, the sooner we can find out if Layton's bunking down with the ghost of Keats or whether we need to look elsewhere." He looked at her with complete seriousness and conviction. "I won't let time run out."

Alex wished she could believe him.

"How do you know?" she whispered.

Robin hesitated. He took in a deep breath.

"Because if you get home," he said quietly, "it means that there is justice in the world after all."

Alex hesitated. She truly wished she shared that conviction. For now she'd just have to let Robin's sincerity carry her through.

"Thank you," she said quietly.

Robin gave a tiny smile. He just hoped that he could carry out his promise. Alex was not a person he wanted to let down.

~xXx~

Evan stepped into Nailer's hospital room, laden with guilt and worry. His transfer to hospital had come as something of a shock. It was most unusual for this to occur simply as the result of a panic attack, but his reaction to the news about the woman he thought was someone special had been so severe that his blood pressure reached a dangerous high and he was transferred.

In the hours that followed Evan began to realise he'd been taken for a dummy. The first murmurings of discontent came as a random detective chief inspector involved with the case had made comment to his 'unethical' revealing of Victoria's role in the operation. Evan had questioned this immediately, pointing out that he was given the information to pass on, but everyone he spoke to remained tight lipped about this being true. It quickly dawned upon Evan that he'd been used as a pawn, to not only break the news to Nailer but to then take the blame for the fallout too. He knew that this wasn't protocol in undercover investigations but also knew that losing an undercover cop to an overdose wasn't protocol either so he hadn't questioned it. Besides, there was something about Nailer that he found surprisingly genuine and he couldn't lie to him.

He waited as two rather rough looking doctors waked past him out of the room before approaching Nailer's bed. The two officers standing outside of the door to prevent him absconding looked rather like a pair of carved wooden bookends.

"Mister Nailer," he said quietly.

Nailer turned over in bed and tried to give Evan that ironic smile he usually wore but it was faltering.

"Don't worry," he said, "this won't affect your fee."

Evan closed his eyes for a second and took a seat by the bed. This was a big man before him – not in terms of stature perhaps, being a fairly average sized man, but in terms of his personality, his reputation and his standing. He'd been reduced to mere ashes by one lie and one truth.

"Nick," he addressed him with his first name, "I'm sorry. I am so sorry."

Nailer tried to give a smile but it was sad and laden.

"What would a girl like that have been doing with me anyway?" he asked quietly, "knew something wasn't right there somewhere. Not with those looks."

Evan looked at him sadly.

"Did you give her the drugs?" he asked.

Nailer looked down.

"Not at first," he said quietly, "some of my mates… they were giving her hassle. She'd say she was off to…" he gave a strange nod, "you know… but we never _saw _her doing anything and one day they challenged her. Teasing… thought it was good natured but one of them thought maybe something was going on. "

"She took up the challenge?" Evan asked.

Nailer nodded.

"You know what's really bad?" he shook his head. "I hated her doing it. How sick is that? I'm the big boy in the city and I hated my girlfriend shooting up. At least if she got stuff from me I could make sure it was clean."

Evan hated to admit it but his heart went out to Nailer. This seemed terribly unfair.

"They believe she may have had an overdose," he said quietly, "perhaps it was a little_ too_ pure." The look on Nailer's face just about killed him. "Mister Nailer…" he hesitated, "I'm sorry. Your bail hearing has been postponed while you're receiving medical supervision and unable to complete questioning."

Nailer waved his hand dismissively.

"I'd rather be answering questions than having a thermometer shoved up my backside every ten minutes," he said. He eyed Evan. "Don't worry, deal still stands, not blaming you."

Evan genuinely hadn't even thought about that side of things. In a way that made him feel awkward. Alex should have been his focus, not the health of a drug dealer. His priorities were screwed up and he knew it.

"I wasn't –" he protested but Nailer held up his hand.

"It's dealt with, Mister White," he said.

Evan hesitated.

"What do you mean, 'it's dealt with'?"

Nailer gave a smirk.

"Helps to have some friends in the medical business," he said, "especially line of trade I'm in."

Evan wasn't sure what he meant.

"I don't follow," he said, scratching a little at his famous beard.

"My medical team don't wish me to be caused any undue stress," Nailer said pointedly, "like a man who's got us both on his hit list."

Even hesitated. He remembered the two slightly rough looking doctors who'd left his room just as he went in. He glanced around, a flash of panic across his face. The reality of the situation began to dawn on him.

"Mister Nailer, what… what are they going to do?" his voice wobbled.

Nailer looked at Evan. He had pity in his eyes.

"Don't you find sometimes it's best never to know?" he asked. He looked at him seriously, "that's what this is all about, after all. Isn't it? Stopping her from knowing?"

Evan swallowed.

"Knowing what?" he whispered.

"There's no honour amongst thieves any more, Mister White. There's so much dealing and double dealing and triple-choc-chip-with-a-flake dealing. Flapped his lips at the other one, then when he disappeared into the ether the one with the specs turned the list into his own fodder. _Ring ring, hello? Yes, you're on this list I've got. What's it worth to know what he has on you? And what's it worth to know about these other names?"_

Evan swallowed. He only half understood what Nailer was saying but he understood enough to feel scared.

"Someone was working with Layton," he guessed, "helping him with his blackmail. And when Layton disappeared –"

"His buddy chum gave me a friendly call," said Nailer, "I wasn't bothered about the scrawny prawn at the time. There wasn't much he could do. But hearing what he had on the others on that list… that was fun. Love a bit of gossip, I do."

Evan swallowed.

"You know about Alex," he said quietly.

Nailer's expression became almost sympathetic.

"It's no skin off my nose whose bed you bounce around in, Mister White, but I know how much the truth hurts." He sighed. "But – by the same token," he gave Evan a grim nod, "your honesty was appreciated. So my side of the deal…" he closed his eyes, "consider it done. Just make sure I'm back in the big wide world on bail as soon as the docs and pigs allow."

Evan didn't know what to say. Torn between relief and horror he just wanted to bury his head in the sand. So perhaps Layton wouldn't reveal his role in the death of her parents or even her shooting, but if Layton's body washed up at the side of the river or landed with a splat from the top of a tall building then there would be blood on his hands too.

But then again, wasn't there enough blood on his hands already? Caroline, Tim, Alex – all by association.

"Thank you, Mister Nailer," he said grimly.

As he turned to leave the room his conscience tied him up in knots. It ran around his neck, strangling him, choking him, making him gasp for air. He began to wonder if he was having a panic attack too. Would he be joining Nailer in the hospital before long?

It was too late now. One way or another it would all be over. He'd lived with a world of guilt for years. Surely one more thing wouldn't make too much of a difference?

As his phone rang and he found a familiar number on the display he became very much aware that the deed had not been done yet. He killed the call without even answering it and marched from the hospital with his hands buried in his pockets. His head was in a tangle and he had no concept how he was ever going to work his way out of it.

Somewhere in his chest, his heart sank.

Despite all the other distractions, one dark fact remained.

Alex was still missing.

"Where are you, Alex?" he whispered as the darkness of the early morning sky surrounded him. He wasn't sure if he would ever find the answer to that question. It, and her, were as elusive as one another.

~xXx~

"No, wait, I can do this…"

Alex could only watch through her fingers as Robin took the eggs, threw them into the air and made a valiant attempt at juggling them. Unfortunately the end result was a pool of white and yolk on the floor. He looked up a little guiltily.

"Maybe I should start with two and work my way up?" he suggested.

Alex shook her head slowly.

"Please don't tell me you once had ambitions to join the circus?" she asked.

"I kind of let them slide with the lion taming…" Robin said a little awkwardly as he began to crawl around on the floor, mopping up the mess.

Kim and Kelly both shuffled to the table looking drained and frazzled.

"I thought you said four," Kelly moaned, "this is half past three. And what's that all over my floor?"

"I had an eggsident," Robin said apologetically, "I mean, an accident." He got to his feet. "I was going to make scrambled eggs."

"My stomach's already scrambled," Kim said sadly, "I don't think I can eat a thing."

"Me neither," said Kelly.

Robin sighed and returned the remaining eggs to the fridge.

"So much for one last meal," he mumbled as he shut the door.

"What exactly are we doing?" Kelly asked anxiously.

Alex sat beside her.

"We had no trouble getting in yesterday," she began, "we're going in again and we'll be looking for evidence of someone living there right now – or at least staying there every now and then. He might be moving around to avoid being caught."

"What if we find him there?" asked Kim.

Alex took a deep breath. Even she wasn't sure.

"I just want him to tell me the truth," she said quietly, "why I was shot. What he had over Evan. Somehow that holds the key. The key to getting home."

Kim bit her lip.

"And if he's not there?"

Alex hadn't even contemplated that possibility.

"Then maybe we'll find something else we missed," she said, "another clue. Maybe something about Keats instead. I'll be looking with fresh eyes now I know his background in this world." She eyed Robin warily. "And what are we _not_ going to do this time?" she asked.

Robin frowned.

"What?"

"We are not going to put on a pair of glasses and a coat and go to a Halloween party as Jim Keats," she told him sternly.

Robin's hands spread wide in horror.

"Don't bring that up again!" he cried, "that was a disguise! I was trying to wear a disguise so we wouldn't get caught!"

"You wouldn't let me put streaks in your hair," Kim pouted.

"I already told you, you can stick your highlighting kit up your arse," said Robin.

"Haven't you ever heard of anal bleaching?" Kim asked.

Robin's face was a picture of horror. There was an element of him that was fundamentally prudish and Kim's words shocked him into silence for several moments until he finally gave a cry of revulsion,

"I'm glad I didn't make those scrambled eggs now!" he cried, his stomach turning.

Alex bit her lip as she looked around the three faces. She'd woken in up 2011 with no one. Now look at what she had. Friends. Support. She couldn't help feeling it was almost time to say goodbye.

"I think it's time to leave now," she whispered. Her sentence held two meanings.

One by one, the others nodded. There was no point delaying inevitable. It was time to try one last time to uncover a key to find her way home. The door was closing on her time in 2011. She could feel it in the air. Stars or no stars, the night sky awaited them as they set off on one last trip to Keats's past domain. The lines were blurring, time running out and the journey coming to an end. It all rested on this.

With a deep breath Alex got to her feet and closed her eyes. This was her destiny. She was going to take it in both hands and fight with every ounce of strength in her body. It was no more than she owed to herself.


	69. Chapter 34, 1995: Capriccioso

_**A/N – the second chapter tonight!**_

**Chapter Thirty Three: 1995**

It was like drinking that last pint, thought Gene. The temptation was too strong to resist, but he knew he'd regret it afterwards when he was hunched over the toilet.

He felt the same way about the tape he'd found in Keats's possessions. He knew full well no good was going to come of it but he couldn't rest knowing it was there. He had to view it. Had to see what was on it. The not knowing was worse than whatever it could contain, he felt fairly sure of that, and Gene Hunt was never wrong.

But there was a first time for everything.

The first thing that greeted him as the video began to play was the sight of the lower levels of Fenchurch West playing home to what they thought at first could be some kind of amateur porn, but they realised quickly held the familiar faces rather than nameless actors.

"_Jim –"_

The first sound that came from the tape was also the one that took a hammer to Gene's heart and smashed it to pieces. That one word was followed by the sight of Alex dissolving into a passionate kiss with the personification of evil which quickly descended into far darker, dirtier actions. With fast, swift movements Keats unfastened and removed her clothes, sending them scattering around the floor before he held her around the waist and pulled her roughly across to the desk.

It took Simon several moments for his basement-addled brain to put together the visual clues and work out what he was watching. When he finally did he threw his hand to his mouth and recoiled in horror.

"Oh my God!" he cried. He realised a little too late that his exclamation was probably a little unnecessary, especially since the look on Gene's face already said every possible thing that Simon's thoughts could echo.

And there she was, sprawled across the desk, her head lolling and breathy gasps emerging from her lips as he discarded her underwear and undressed his lower half almost in an instant.

"_Alex…I've waited a long time for this…"_

Simon's eyes fixed upon Gene as those words played out. He swallowed as he watched his expression carefully. He had never seen a face so twisted by pain or torture before. Gene looked as though he could genuinely explode. He trembled slightly, almost imperceptibly, his face turning red and his eyes glowing with anger. They glossed over, offering a glare that Simon had never witnessed before.

"Gene…" he began quietly, wanting to beg him to turn it off or to look away but he couldn't even finish his sentence before the moment arrived; the moment Keats took what he wanted. What he'd wanted for so very many years.

"_Oh Alex… if only you knew…"_

Gene's expression twisted and contorted, his fist shaking and his eyes flashing with anger.

"Turn it off," Simon implored him, "Come on, Gene –"

"_Wait…"_ he heard Alex gasp, _"we can't… it's not safe…"_

_"Shhh… what's the harm, Alex? What does it matter if it's all in here I'm just in your mind, you told me yourself. Give yourself what you want just this once."_

That did it. Something snapped inside of Gene and exploded out of him like a ten ton dinosaur landing on a water balloon

"I'll kill him!" He cried, thumping his fist on the desk, "I'll fucking kill him. _And_ her!"

"Gene," Simon stood up and tried to calm him, "that's not _your_ Alex!"

"It's still her _body!"_ he cried, "it's _her_ body and that bloody pompous nymphomaniac has let the dirty devil stick his love truncheon in there!" He stared at Simon. "Stop bloody watching it!"

"I'm not!" lied Simon.

"Take yer eyes off her!"

"They're not _on_ her!"

"Take them off of _him_ then!"

"_So many years…"_ Keats's voice played out.

Gene felt a wretched anger like he'd never experienced in his life before rising in his chest. He wanted to reach out and punch a hole in the damn television screen. More than that, he wanted to punch a hole in Keats's head.

_"…so many, long, empty years…"_

He shook harder as he watched the screen. He knew he was making it worse but he couldn't stop. He was glued to the spot and he couldn't move his eyes away either. His inability to move forced him to watch every last moment -

_"…I've waited to have you…"_

- Right to the second that Keats could hold back no longer and gave a final thrust to deposit his load.

_"…again."_

_Bang._

That word might as well have been a bullet to the head for Gene.

_Again._

Simon saw the look on Gene's face. He struggled to speak, tried desperately to form a coherent sentence but his mouth was barely co-operating.

"_Oh, no, Gene…."_

"I'll fucking rip his nuts off!" Gene screamed, finally moving from the spot to pace through his office door and out of CID with Simon following close behind.

"No, Gene, that's not what you think…"

Gene stopped for a split second, turned around and barked in Simon's face,

"He said _again!"_

"It's all in his head, Gene," Simon tried to follow him but his funny turn in the basement had left him a little wobbly and he found Gene a hard man to keep up with as they belted down the stairs, "I read all about it in his files… Gene… he's insane… he had all these fantasies and –" they reached the doors now and filtered out into the car park. Simon struggled to keep up with Gene as he threw open the door of the car, sank into the seat and started the engine. He ran to the passenger side but barely managed to open the door before Gene started the car and began to drive away.

"_Gene!"_ Simon screamed, "What the fucking hell are you doing?"

"This one's a solo mission, Shoebury," Gene told him, speeding up, but Simon took a risk, closed his eyes and propelled himself into the car. Somehow he managed to park his backside in the seat and quickly shut the door before Gene could attempt to push him back out.

"Are you trying to kill me or something?"

"There's only one person on my hit list, but if you get in the way I _will_ take your balls off too."

"Gene, you've got to listen to me," Simon tried to reason with him but it was difficult when Gene's driving was making his breakfast threaten to make an escape, "he never did… not before… it's all in those files. Down in the basement."

Gene turned to glare at him.

"You mean in the files you never found in the basement?" he asked sarcastically, more than a little angry with Simon for keeping the truth from him.

Simon looked suitably ashamed.

"Look," he began, "you're right, there _was _stuff down there… a _lot_ of stuff…"

"You do surprise me, Shoebury – what are you going to do for an encore? Tell me the sky's blue?"

"It's in his head, Guv," Simon urged, "he tried to get Alex years ago but she didn't want him. He tried to put the thought in her head, but she was too strong and she fought it. But his files… his head… he twisted it round until he believed he'd had her. It's all fantasy, Gene. But in his twisted mind, it became real."

"And what about now?" Gene spat angrily, "_that _wasn't in his bloody head, was it? Not unless that tape was a direct line to Jimbo's subconscious."

"But that's not _your_ Alex," Simon insisted.

"Not inside her head, no," Gene cried, "that's some posh tart with her head up her own backside and I don't have a spare fifteen years to wait for her to become the Bolly I know! But how's she going to feel, Shoebury? Hmm?" he made a sharp turn which heft Simon's head thumping against the window, "what about Bolly? What's she going to do when she gets back and finds Jimbo's been potholing in her innards?"

"Eugh! _Gene!"_ Simon retched. He felt sick at the terminology but he could understand what Gene meant. He nodded slowly. "It reminds me of this –"

"If that sentence ends with the words _'episode of Red Dwarf where…_' then I suggest you quit while you're ahead and start talking about something worthwhile instead," Gene said angrily.

"Like?"

"Like whatever the hell you found in those flaming files!" Gene told him, "and I mean spilling your guts pronto-tonto because if you don't then you're going out the sunroof."

"If you don't slow down I will be spilling my guts in a totally different way," Simon blanched.

Gene scowled.

"Spill it, Shoe-Boy."

Simon looked at Gene with scared eyes. He couldn't do it. He couldn't say the words.

"Gene_, no,"_ he whispered, "It's best that you don't know."

Gene's eyes rolled so hard Simon thought they might come flying out of their sockets.

"That's one of the least comforting things you can say to someone, along with _it happens to every man_ and _you can hardly even see the dent._"

"You have to trust me on this," Simon said tightly.

"Like your trustworthy '_I've not found a thing'_?" Gene challenged.

"I'm trying to protect you here!"

"You should have protected me from your flapping lips," Gene said crossly, "and kept them shut in the first place."

Simon exhaled loudly. He closed his eyes and felt his heart racing.

"Remember what I told you yesterday. Sam Tyler."

"If this is about a bloody leather jacket again..."

"He gave up his life to protect you!" Simon interrupted, "and Alex… you said yourself, it almost destroyed you when the truth came out." He looked at Gene sincerely. "Well what I found… it's bigger than that. It's bigger than you or me, or anyone else in this world. And if it's destroying _me_ then it will eat you alive." He pleaded with Gene. "If you can just trust me… just for once… I _promise _I'll… I'll get Keats to change. I'll get the man back from the monster. And then we can get Alex back."

"And birds will be singing in the trees and beautiful flowers will sprout out yer arse," Gene snapped.

Simon could feel himself on the verge of tears as Gene pulled up into Fenchurch West and parked sideways across two spaces.

"Are you going to trust me now or is _all _the trust we've built up these last few weeks going to go to waste?" Simon asked crossly. He could tell his tone wasn't going to get him anywhere so with a sigh he tried a different tactic. "Gene… You turned up on my doorstep and I took you in, no question. I faced my biggest fear to spend the day in that basement in the hope of getting Alex back for you. Haven't I proven myself to you? Don't you trust me?" he paused. "Take a leap of faith, Gene."

Gene hesitated. He saw a look of deep sincerity and fear in Simons eyes. He cleared his throat.

"If you'll excuse me, Simon," he began, "I need to take a blunt object to a collection of dangly ones somewhere between Jimbo's legs."

Simon blinked. He could picture Gene storming into Fenchurch West and ending up in a cell forever more. He could see him ruining every chance he had of bringing Alex home. He couldn't let him do that.

"_Oh, heaven help me…"_ he mumbled. Taking the most desperate action he could think of, he reached into his pocket, pulled out his Fenchurch East issue handcuffs, slapped one end over Gene's wrist and the other onto the steering wheel.

There was a heartbeat in which Simon realised that, despite being allegedly indestructible, he was probably about to die.

A heartbeat in which Gene's face became one of complete disbelief, completely certain that Simon could _not_ have done what he seemed to have done and that Gene _had _to be hallucinating because otherwise there was going to be a dead Shoebury on the floor in approximately 3 seconds time.

"Simon?" Gene's voice was as calm and measured as Simon had ever heard it.

"Yes?" he swallowed.

A beat.

"_WHAT THE BLOODY, MOTHER-FUCKING HELL DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?" _Gene exploded_, "give me the ruddy key this fucking second or it's roast bloody Shoebury on toast for dinner!"_

Simon drew back a little. His heart flip-flopped in his chest.

"This is for your own good, Gene…" her began awkwardly as Gene started to rattle the handcuffs.

"My own bloody _good?"_ cried Gene, "well, it's certainly not for _yours_, is it, Shoe-boy?" He reached out. "where's the key?"

"You're not having it," Simon said quickly like a kid who'd been told to share his favourite toy.

"Give me the bloody key!" Gene screamed, rattling the cuffs so hard Simon thought the wheel was about to fall off.

To Simon's horror Gene grabbed his trousers and began an attempt to locate the key in his pocket. Simon acted quickly, grabbed the key, held it tightly then without thinking put it in his mouth and swallowed it but it got stuck on the way down and he coughed and spluttered until it came back out and dropped to the floor.

"This never happens in the bloody movies," he mumbled as he choked.

"Think yourself lucky," Gene yelled, "if that had gone right down I'd have been extracting it with me hand down yer gob by now!"

Simon grabbed the key off the floor and made a second attempt at swallowing it. This time it went straight down with a gulp before he opened the door and prepared to make his exit. He looked at Gene whose anger was reaching levels Simon had never seen before.

"Oh _god,"_ he whispered, "Look, Gene, I know you can't understand why…"

"Yes I can, it's because you've got a bloody death wish!"

"But you have to trust me on this," Simon continued. He trembled a little as he looked at Gene, "if you go marching in there you _will _do something you'll regret and I'm not letting you get arrested by the enemy and thrown away in a burning cell for eternity. And you_ know_ that will happen."

"He screwed her bloody brains out, and he says he's done it before," Gene spat angrily, "you expect me to sit calmly by, pat him on the head and tell him all 'er favourite positions?"

Simon began to back away out of the open car door. Despite Gene lashing out and attempting a punch which only caught him in the rib cage, then grabbing him by his tie and trying to drag him back into the car he managed to get away.

"Let me go, Simon," Gene warned.

Simon stared back into the car. He'd never been so scared.

"I'm sorry, Gene," he whispered, "this is something I have to do on my own, for your sake. For _Alex's _sake."

"Let me go or you'll regret it!" Gene threatened.

"What are you going to do? Flush my x-files poster down the bog?"

"It's your _head_ I'll be flushing down the bog," Gene yelled as Simon turned to run towards the building, "and that's just for a start!" He paused, anger bubbling inside of him, "Simon! _Simon!"_ He gathered his breath for one last cry,_ "Geek of the year with a bloody deathwish!"_

But Simon was well and truly out of earshot now and Gene's screams were heard only by some amused Fenchurch West officers, laughing and pointing at the man handcuffed to his own car.

~x~

As he ran into the station Simon pulled out his mobile and dialled a number. He was grateful phones no longer weighed the same as a small elephant but still longed for more of a taste of the twenty-first century. This one barely fitted inside his pocket still.

"Hello… Kim?" he said a little breathlessly, "It's me. I need you to do me a favour," He bit his lip. "Gene's in a spot of bother. He's accidentally handcuffed himself to his car in the car park of Fenchurch West. Can you come and rescue him?" He listened for a second at the shocked questioning that came down the line. "No, really, he's fine… just mislaid the key, that's all," he rubbed his neck, his throat still sore, then belched. "And you might want to bring some cutty-open things to get them off."

As he hung up the call he stopped at the entrance to the station and peered up at the look-a-like frontage to the station. Keats had started to take Gene's life piece by piece and it was time to put a stop to it. He knew there were going to be endless repercussions from this and that he'd be receiving swirlies for the next five years at least but the truth was too much for Gene to take and Simon wasn't going to be the one to break his heart and soul into pieces.

"I'm coming for you, Keats," he mumbled under his breath, "and this time the monster's not going to be in charge."


	70. Chapter 35, 2011: Col Pugno

**Chapter Thirty Five: 2011**

Alex pulled up outside of the familiar building with Robin looking slightly green on the seat beside her.

"Why did I let you drive again?" he asked.

"You wanted to get here quickly didn't you?" Alex asked, slightly offended.

"If I wanted to get in a car with Gene Hunt I'd step under a bus and go back to ninety five!" Robin blurted, forgetting Kelly was the odd man out in the back. He bit his lip and hoped she'd be so confused by his words that she wouldn't even think to ask about it. Thankful it seemed he was in luck this time.

"Are we going in?" Kim asked quietly.

Alex glanced at her. She seemed terrified but determined. In fact, that seemed to be a running theme.

"We're going in," she said firmly.

Four doors opened and one nervous person stepped out of each. They stared at the building together, exchanged a glance and then walked towards it, united and strong. They knew that none of them really wanted to be there, but since they _had_ to be at least they were together. In support came strength and there was nothing they could face that would get the better of them.

~x~

Except for the locked fire escape.

"Shit, this was open yesterday!" Robin cursed.

"It's not Groundhog Day, Robin," sighed Kim.

"I just hadn't even thought…" Robin sighed and shook his head. "Come on, let's keep going. Maybe one of the other doors will be open."

They trailed up another rickety staircase to another level but again the door was locked. Three more they tried. Three more attempts, three more failures until on the last but one floor they found the door slightly ajar.

"Oh sweet relief!" Robin breathed. He was glad that he wasn't going to be called upon to do some kind of pathetic shoulder-jamming entrance because he knew full well where that would end up.

In the hospital, with a fractured shoulder.

"We've got to go down a few floors," Alex said as they stepped into the dimly-lit corridor.

"How far down?" asked Kelly.

"I'll tell you when we get there," said Alex.

They walked along the corridor until they came upon a stair case and began to head down it. They travelled down two flights before Robin stopped unexpectedly and bent down to pick something up, causing both Kim and Kelly to trip over his backside.

"_Robin!"_ cried Kim, her pride hurting as much as her now-scrazed knees.

"Why is everyone tripping over me today?" Robin asked in frustration.

"Maybe because you're lurking in places and stopping when you should keep going?" Alex suggested.

"What the hell did you stop for anyway?" asked Kim.

Robin held something up.

"I found something on the stairs," he said.

"What is it?" asked Kelly.

"A piece of paper," said Robin.

"I think we noticed that."

"No, look," Robin rolled his eyes as he held it out, "It's _more_ than just a piece of paper. It's got a phone number on it."

Alex sighed.

"Have you any idea how many people drop pieces of paper with phone numbers on them every day?" she asked tiredly. She suspected paranoia was getting the better of Robin.

"Not everything is significant," said Kim.

"Yeah, but I think you'll find this is," said Robin. He handed it to Alex. "Recognise it?" he watched as she shrugged, then sighed and closed his eyes. "No, of course you don't, sorry, I was forgetting."

"Forgetting what?" asked Alex.

"To tell us what he's blathering about?" Kim suggested.

Robin looked at Alex. He seemed to shake just a little.

"Alex, this is Evan's mobile number," he said quietly.

Alex froze. She stared at Robin, then at the paper in his hand.

"Robin, are you sure?" she whispered.

Robin nodded grimly.

"I know this number off by heart," he said sadly, "I was calling it twice a day when I was on trial."

Alex bit her lip and stared at the paper. It seemed almost unreal. How could that be?

"I feel like the world's about to implode," she whispered.

Robin stared at her That was a very strange thing to say. And yet, he felt the same thing.

"What's this doing here?" he asked.

"Unless everyone in the Falcon Building has information on Evan then there's one likely suspect," said Alex.

Robin turned cold.

"So he _is_ here?" he whispered, "or at least, he's _been_ here?"

Alex paused. She took a deep breath in and let it out slowly.

"I have a question," she said, "what is it doing _here?_ On this staircase?"

"Layton must have dropped it," Kim shrugged.

"But what is it doing on this floor when Keats's flat is further down?"

"He must have come in through the top floor too," said Kelly.

"Not necessarily," said Robin. He peered upward to the floors above. "There are an awful lot of empty flats here. It's not a very popular place to live. Not since the whole _Keats_ thing came out."

Alex looked at him with a touch of alarm.

"He's here, but he's not _there,"_ she whispered.

Kelley rubbed her head.

"It's too early for this," she said, "is he here or not?"

"He's here," Alex whispered, "but he's not in that flat. "

"He knew this building and needed somewhere familiar," Robin said quietly, "somewhere he knew. But somewhere local."

"I knew Keats's flat was in too much of a state for anyone to live in," Alex whispered.

"But the panel, it came away so easily…"

"He's probably _been_ there. Maybe looking for his list. All the stuff we found."

"But he's staying somewhere else," Robin finished off her thought for her. He stared at her. "Somewhere here."

Alex nodded. She could feel it. She could just feel it inside her.

"So where do we start looking?" she whispered.

A flurry of footsteps from overhead brought gasps from four faces and their eyes turned upward.

"How about… _there?"_ Robin declared.

"_Layton,"_ Alex hissed.

"Where's he going?" Kim asked.

Robin thought fast.

"Stairs must go right up to the roof," he thought, "Kim, Kelly, take the fire escape – he'll probably go all the way up and come down that way. Alex," he glanced at her as he started up the staircase, _"heel!"_

Alex scowled.

"I'm not one of your bloody police dogs!" she cried taking up the chase.

"Sorry, Alex," Robin called back, "old habits and all that!"

As Kim and Kelly raced to the nearest fire exit, Robin and Alex ran up, up and up a little further.

"_Just as I suspected,"_ Robin muttered as the last set of stairs led to a roof exit and he hauled himself out. He turned to help Alex up the final step before they ran after Layton as he moved quickly towards the fire exit towards one side of the roof, but Kim and Kelly soon arrived up the ladder and Layton froze. His eyes turned from one side to the other, with two people apiece whichever exit he looked towards. He swallowed and reached instantly for his gun which he trained at each person in turn.

"Stay where you are," he barked, a manic look in his eyes.

Four sets of hands rose into the air.

"Alright," Alex said quickly, "alright. We won't move." She licked her lips nervously. "It's Layton, isn't it? Arthur Layton."

Layton's eyes flitted from person to person before they fell back onto Alex.

"I know who _you_ are," he said.

Alex nodded slightly.

"I know," she said quietly. She took a deep breath. "We came to find you because we want to know the truth, Arthur. About Evan." She swallowed as he seemed to twitch nervously. "We know you were blackmailing him and when he wouldn't give in…" she paused, "we know that's why you shot me."

Layton looked around. He shuddered in the cold and focused his gun on Alex.

"You can all stop staring at me for a start," he told them anxiously, "move your eyes away. No need to stare." He paused. "_Turn your fucking heads!"_

Slowly, exchanging a glance along the way, all four of them averted their eyes from Layton. Alex cleared her throat.

"Please," she said quietly, "I don't hold you responsible." That was a lie and she knew it but she was desperate, "but I need to know why you did it. What you knew about Evan." She glanced up and saw his stare trained on her. She looked down again, careful not to antagonise him. "Can you tell me that?"

Layton stared at her. His eyes were flashing with anger and desperation. It took several seconds before he spoke again.

"_I'm_ not telling you anything," he hissed, "that's not my job." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a mobile phone then pressed a button to redial the last number he'd called and held it to his ear. Slowly, four pairs of eyes moved back into his direction. They knew they were not supposed to look at him, he'd been_ very_ clear on that, but they needed to know what he was doing. He paced a little while he waited, then his call was answered. "Oh, decided to talk to me this time, have you?" He paused and listened for a moment. "Well I'd think carefully about that because you know what happened last time. And guess what?" his eyes focused on Alex. "Got your lovely goddaughter here in front of me. Again." A pause. "Surely you remember what happened last time. Got a whole _collection_ of them here this time, in fact. Don't know who the others are." He studied them in turn. "Looks like a punk, a poof and a Plain-Jane to me." He gave a strained laugh as he listened to Evan. "Yeah, I know I said the end of today was the deadline, but guess what? I'm bringing it forward." He paced as he listened. "I don't give a damn if you'll have it by tonight. I want you down here _now._ Falcon Building. Bridge street." He glared at Alex. "It's gone beyond money now. You've got ten minutes."

He cut the call and dropped his phone to the floor. He wasn't going to be needing that again.

Alex stared at him, fear welling inside of her. How could they have been so stupid as to come storing in with no weapon and no plan? They'd fully expected him to be sitting meekly in Keats's flat with a tin if baked beans on the go.

"You were calling Evan?" she asked quietly.

"Did I _say_ you could look at me?" Evan barked to the crowd as he realised their eyes had all returned to him.

"No," Alex said quickly averting her eyes, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry." She paused and watched from the corner of her eye as he trained his gun firmly on her. There was a long silence. For some time Alex feared they were going to stand there in stony silence until Evan arrived, or until the ten minutes passed and he had to decide what to do instead, but finally he spoke.

"Why the _hell_ did you have to wake up?"

Alex dared to look up at him. His face was furious and rabid.

"What?" she whispered.

"You had to fucking wake up and spoil everything, didn't you?" he spat, "things were getting back to normal. I could stop watching my back all the time. Then you open your eyes and you're in the news again. Now I'm back to hiding in the shadows!"

"Do you feel angry with me?" Alex asked quietly, "are you angry with me for surviving?"

"Shut up!" Layton barked.

"Or is it Evan you're angry with?"

"I told you to shut your mouth!" Layton yelled. He watched Alex slowly hang her head in defeat. She didn't say another word. Didn't dare. In the fearful silence, Layton pushed up his sleeve to scratch at his arm. He did that a lot; scratching. It was a nervous habit and he spent much of his time being nervous so it was something he did often.

"That's a nice piece of work."

Layton froze. He looked up to see who'd dared to speak.

"What?"

"On your arm." It was Kim. She dared to nod in his direction. "The tattoo. Nice piece of work."

Layton looked down. His tattoo was rarely seen. He kept it hidden so that he couldn't be easily identified. His eyes darted from his arm to the woman who'd spoken.

"So?" he raised his lip at one side, as though attempting to shrug with his mouth.

"Nice design," Kim continued, "striking. Can't see the colours in this light though."

Layton stared at her. Was she for real? He licked his lips anxiously.

"Shading," he mumbled, "black and grey."

Kim nodded slowly.

"Like my sleeve," she said, "well, half sleeve." She started to turn slightly and dropped one of her arms a little. "Can I…?" she paused, awaiting his reaction but when he didn't say anything she took a chance and slowly peeled up her sleeve. A large piece of art covering the top of her left arm was revealed. "Nice, isn't it?"

Layton stared at it. Despite himself, his curiosity got the better of him and his eyes darted to her tattoo. He nodded and swallowed.

"What's it mean?" he asked quickly, his body trembling.

"Clash of two worlds," Kim said, "and the fine line that separates them." She paused. "And on the top, it says '_I Survived'_. Because I did." She took a deep breath. "I got stabbed. Years and years ago… I thought I was going to die but I didn't." She looked at Layton, looked him right in the eye. "Every tattoo tells a story," she said. Her tongue flicked nervously around her lips. "What story does yours tell?"

Layton stared at her. His eyes grew a little darker.

"No story," he said, "just wanted it."

"Always a reason why," Kim told him, "Sometimes to remember something." She paused. "Sometimes to forget."

Layton's stare became more intense. He gripped the gun and trained it on Kim.

"I like the pain," he murmured through gritted teeth.

"The pain?" Kim repeated. He nodded slowly. "That's an important part of the experience," She breathed, "cathartic. The pain on the outside…" she paused, "helps to distract you from the pain in here," she tapped her head, "right?"

Layton didn't answer. He seemed to tremble. Taking a deep breath, Robin spoke up.

"We all have pain in there," he said, "in our minds. But we deal with it in different ways, right?" He watched as Layton turned his gun in his direction. He'd expected that. "sometimes people drink. Throw abuse at themselves," he hesitated. "Sometimes drugs." He chewed on his lip. "Are you on something now, Arthur?" He noticed Layton twitched. "You know, that's special circumstances. Plead addiction and get into rehab. You could move on from this and finally put it all behind you. No more running." He breathed in and out, trying hard to stop himself from shaking. "Wouldn't that feel good? To finally stop looking over your shoulder?"

Layton held his finger in place against the trigger.

"I'm not a fucking addict," he hissed, but his tremors told otherwise.

Robin stared at him. There was something else on Layton's face. It was another emotion.

"Why did you come back here?" he asked quietly.

Layton looked at him as though he'd gone crazy.

"Why do you fucking think?"

"Well," Robin tried to hold his voice steady, "that's what I'm trying to work out. Because you say that things have become worse since Alex woke up. Since she was in the news again. But instead of going as far away as possible, you come back here. Return to the scene of the crime." He paused. "Why?"

Layton gave a confused, sneering laugh.

"Why do you think?" he spat, "to get the reddies from her dearest _godfather _that were supposed to be mine a long time ago!"

Robin bit his lip.

"So Evan didn't pay you what you asked for," he said quietly, and then you shot Alex."

Layton began to feel threatened. He shook a little harder.

"Yeah?" he challenged, "and? Thought you knew that already."

Robin took a deep breath.

"We did," he said, "we found your list." He noticed the look on Layton's face changing. "The list you gave to Keats." He hesitated. "He was helping you, wasn't he? He gave you the means to contact those names and then you'd get their money and split it fifty-fifty."

Layton found his lips were dry suddenly. He licked them nervously and stared at Robin.

"And?"

Robin swallowed. He took a chance on that look he saw buried behind the layers of maniacal energy and the tremors his body faced.

"Why did you feel the need to go after these people, Layton?"

Layton frowned.

"For money," he gave a confused laugh, "you stupid or something?"

"No one needs the money that much," Robin told him.

"You have no idea," Layton slowly shook his head, anger in his eyes.

Alex glanced from Layton to Robin. What the hell did he think he was _doing?_

"It wasn't _just_ the money," Robin corrected, "you needed to go after those people for what they did to you."

Layton glared.

"Think about what_ I_ did to _them,"_ he said, "I screwed them for everything they had."

"But you're still going after Evan and you know he doesn't even have the money you've asked for," Robin reminded him, "so when he gets here, what's the plan? Come on, Layton. If it was just about the money you've have shot us all already."

Layton aimed the gun squarely towards Robin's head.

"I can make that thought a reality as fast as anything, yeah?" he warned.

Robin swallowed.

"It's about blame, isn't it?" he said.

Layton froze.

"What?"

Robin breathed in deeply.

"It's not just a blackmail list," he said. His voice was strong and steady now. "It's a blame list."

"Don't be a fucking idiot."

"It is," Robin said quietly, "isn't it?" He watched Layton's trembling hands around the gun. "Those people on the list… they weren't just people you had something on. They were people who'd paid you to do something. Or people who were connected with things you'd done in your past. Things you weren't proud of." He paused. "Things you've taken the blame for. Things that have been eating you up with guilt."

"Shut up," Layton hissed through gritted teeth.

"And every time someone pays you the money," Robin continued calmly, "every time they give in to your demands it's as good as admitting the blame so that it's one less thing for you to blame _yourself_ for."

"It _is_ their fault!" Layton spat, "if they didn't want it done –"

"I know," Robin said quickly, "I know." He paused. "That was a _long_ list we found, Layton. That's a lot of guilt to carry around with you."

Layton shook his head.

"You've got _no_ fucking idea," he hissed.

"It's no wonder you need to take the edge off the pain."

"_Shut it!"_

"We _understand_ that," Robin urged him, "and there's no need for this. There's no need for the gun. We're not going anywhere. We want to know what Evan's got to say just as much as you want to hear him take the blame." He turned to Alex. "Don't we?"

Alex glanced from Robin to Layton then nodded slowly.

"I just need to know," she said quietly, "I already know that he refused to pay you once before and that's why you shot me. If he'd paid then you wouldn't have had to do that." She swallowed and choked out a lie. "It wasn't your fault."

Layton stared at her.

"It wasn't just the money," he hissed. He took a deep breath. "If he didn't want to pay… _couldn't _pay…" His eyes were so manic they were almost rolling, "he could have fucking told you the truth and then I'd never have had to do what I did!"

"OK," Alex said quietly, "OK, I understand that," she nodded, "but what –"

Her train of though was interrupted by a single loud beep of as car horn. Layton stepped cautiously toward the edge of the roof and peered over. There, down below, was Evan, his car door open and hand on the steering wheel, ready to honk again if necessary.

"The man of the hour!" Layton cried, almost a little maniacally. He glowered at him. "Come and join us on the roof. It's almost like a party!"

He watched, almost amused, as Evan began a slow and unsteady ascent up the fire escape, then he stepped back to await his arrival. His gaze turned back to Alex.

"Showtime, Alex," he whispered.

All eyes turned to the edge of the roof as a breathless, terrified and panting Evan slowly appeared over the side and hauled himself up. He collapsed to the floor for a few moments. His beard had vertigo. So did the rest of him. Finally he looked up and found Layton's boots in front of him. His gaze travelled upwards and the rest of Layton appeared.

"Took your time on those stairs," said Layton, "anyone would think you were a bit afraid of heights."

He stuck one shoe under Evan and pushed him slightly backwards which made him scream in fear, fully believing he was about to go over the edge. Eventually he scrambled to his feet and moved away.

"I'm here," he said quickly "I'm here. Now what? What do you want?"

"You know what I want," Layton hissed.

"I don't have the money," Evan told him. He shook from head to toe as his eyes turned to Alex. His expression fell. "Oh _Alex…"_

Alex stared at him. She still had no recall of him as her godfather. She merely knew him as a solicitor from back in the day. But what she did know of him so far she didn't like.

"It's gone beyond money now," Layton spat. His glare focused on Evan. "let's try the truth instead."

"If you'd just give me more time…"

"There are two ways we can do this," Layton began angrily, "number one, you tell Alex everything. The truth about her parents. Why they died. Why she got shot. Or, you stand there flapping your trap and I call every news agency in the country with the hidden history of Beard Model Evan White and the miracle recovery of Alex Drake. Hmm? What's it going to be? You confess everything here and now and face your goddaughter like a man, or quiver like a coward and I'll tell the whole world instead.

Evan's pallor now turned the colour of snow. White by name, white by nature. His eyes were full of tears he'd been carrying around with him from the moment Alex absconded and his body began to tremble. He'd never experienced a sense of fear like this before. It consumed every part of him.

"You can't do this," his voice shook.

"Cat's out of the bag, Evan," Robin said coldly, "we know there's something with you at the heart of it already. It's only the _'what'_ that we don't know." He shook his head slowly and narrowed his eyes. "The way you treated me. Trying to keep me away from Alex. Not telling me why." He took a step toward him, all kinds of anger coming from deep inside of him. "You threatened to have her _sectioned!"_

"She was talking crazy nonsense!" Evan protested, "I was scared for her!"

"Not scared enough to do anything when Layton held a gun to her head three years ago!" Robin cried, "Huh?" Evan's expression faltered. "Oh come off it, Evan – we've already figured out that much. Layton was blackmailing you, you said no and he shot her." He paused, realising that Layton was watching on in amusement, as though Robin was doing half the job for him. He tried to cool his temper a little. "So tell her." His eyes turned to Alex just briefly. Her hair was blowing a little in the wind, parting her fringe just where the bullet wound was visible. "_Look at her._ Look at what you did to her."

"_He_ fired the gun!" Evan protested.

"Because he's got something on you," Robin cried, "because there's something in your past that you made him do!"

"No!" cried Evan, "It wasn't me!"

"Then why is your name on his _fucking list?"_ Robin's attempt to control his temper was fading fast.

"I didn't ask him!" Evan cried, "I didn't pay him! It had nothing to do with me!"

"It had _everything_ to do with you," Layton spoke. His voice was calmer than any of them had heard yet. "No, you didn't put the money in my hand. You didn't make the call. You didn't tell me to do anything. But without your _input,"_ he spat that word as though it left a bad taste in his mouth, "Tim Price wouldn't have asked me to do anything either."

Alex stared at Layton. She might not have recalled the Prices as her parents but she felt shaken inside,

"What did he do?" she whispered.

Layton's eyes turned to Evan.

"Go on then," he hissed, "tell the lady. What did you do, Evan?" he gave a sneer, "or should that be, _who_ did you do?"

In that moment, all eyes turned to Evan. A lifetime of guilt, grief and horror washed up inside of him like plastic on the shore, unable to break down and disintegrate it had nowhere to go. It just stayed there, floating inside of him forever. He gulped back a sob of fear and anguish as his eyes fell on Alex.

"Oh my god," he whispered, "Alex, I'm so sorry."

"_Tell her!"_

Evan swallowed. His eyes met Alex's. They looked different. They were unfamiliar.

"If the eyes are the window to the soul," he whispered, "then why can't I see my little Alex inside yours any more?"

Alex shuddered. His words disturbed her. She swallowed and shook her head a little. This wasn't the direction the conversation was supposed to take. This was coming days too late.

"The truth, Evan," she whispered.

Evan's tears had started to fall by now. They ran wildly down his face, and even though he tried to wipe them away more came to take their place. His chest ached with devastation and heavy, choking sobs robbed him of his voice for several moments. When he finally pulled together some semblance of self-control he stared into her eyes again. He swallowed and drew in a deep and jagged breath.

"Your mum," he whispered.

Alex stared back.

"What about her?" Despite her disconnected state there was a pang of anxiety inside of her.

Evan choked back angry tears.

"We," he whispered. He flinched. The words caught in his throat. "We were…" his eyes flicked to Layton whose stare was unfaltering. He swallowed. "We had… a thing…"

Alex swallowed. She knew full well what he was talking about but she needed to be sure.

"What kind of a _thing?"_ she whispered.

"We…" he closed his eyes as his world began to crumble around him. "It was sex, it was _just sex,_ and…"

"But nothing's ever 'just sex' though, is it?" Layton spat, "because when _Mister Other Man_ finds out then he has to look at his wife every day and see_ you_ there, sticking one in her!"

Alex stared at Evan. She started to tremble. Looking at the situation as an outsider, the man who was supposed to be her godfather had been having an affair with her mother? Her guts were churning and burning with contempt.

"Sick," she breathed, "So, _so_ sick."

"You haven't heard the best part yet," Layton was smiling but the smile was full of anger and anxiety, "go on, Evan. Tell her. Tell her why. Tell her why her parents died."

"_No…"_

"_Tell her!"_

"You've already made me say so much!" Evan cried.

"I'll make you say a hell of a lot more!" Layton barked, "Now tell her how her parents fucking _died!"_

Once again all eyes turned to Evan as his legs seemed to give out beneath him and he sank to the ground. His sobbing began again, his whole body shaking, wracked with the guilt and the devastation he'd been keeping inside for a lifetime. When finally he was able to speak he gulped in a lungful of the cold night air and whispered,

"The car bomb."

Alex swallowed.

"Yes?" she breathed.

Evan's eyes were on her.

"It was your father," he whispered.

Alex stared past him. His words seemed to make no sense. They held no meaning.

"What?"

"Your father," Evan breathed, "he found out about me and your mother and he…" he closed his eyes and shook his head slowly, "he paid this man -" he aimed his finger angrily at Layton, "_Him, overt there_ – to build a bomb. A car bomb. He intended to kill you as well… all three of you were going to die…"

Alex couldn't make out a word that he was saying. The words turned and jumbled inside her mind. She swallowed and shook her head.

"I don't understand…"

He wasn't quite right, Alex," Evan wept, "it did him in, in his mind. _I _did that… I turned his life upside down and…" sobs took over and stole the end of his sentence as he collapsed further into a jabbering, quivering wreck of tears and pain upon the floor.

Alex stood, shaking, staring at him. It seemed too unbelievable. It didn't make any sense to her, and it didn't matter that she didn't remember Evan or her mother and father; the fact was that this was so horrific, so terribly gut-wrenching that the thought of it tore her up inside. It might not have been 'her' life but there was a part of her who'd lived this. The other 'her'. The her who was living in her body in 1995, cutting her hair and sitting in the basement, watching documentaries about Jim Keats that wouldn't be made for another fifteen years. She swallowed.

"How could you do that?" she whispered, "how could you do that to a family?"

"I'm sorry," Evan's voice choked from underneath his folded arms. "I'm so sorry, Alex. I never wanted to hurt you. Never wanted to hurt your family. I loved you all –"

"Yes – too much apparently!" Alex cried.

"I'm sorry!" Evan sobbed again.

Alex opened her mouth to launch another tirade of moral abuse at him but right at that second a hand appeared over the side of the fire escape. This was followed a moment later by another hand, and then a head. A burly body followed suit,

"Arthur Layton?"

The roof was shocked into silence, six faces struck dumb by the arrival of a stranger. As the man stood firmly on the roof a second pair of hands followed suit, joined again by a head and a body just a few seconds later. Very quickly two men stood before them and Layton started shaking at double speed.

"Who wants to know?" he hissed.

The men exchanged a glance then looked back at him.

"Nick Nailer does," the first man told him.

Layton swallowed.

"Does he now?"

"Yeah."

Layton took in a deep breath.

"Right," he said, "Well, in that case, you'd better tell him –"

Two loud bangs completed the end of his sentence as he fired two bullets at the men who both collapsed in a flurry of groans and blood. Layton knew the game was up. _This was it._ His feet made a desperate exit as they ran him toward the stairs that led back down inside the building.

"Oh _shit!"_ Robin cried. He took up the chase, running down the stairs as fast as he could with only one shoe, Kim hot on his heels and Alex and Kelly a little behind. He caught a glimpse of Layton fleeing down another set of stairs so he followed him onwards but finally caught a glimpse of him disappearing down a corridor.

"He's going for the fire escape!" Kim cried.

"Then so are we," mumbled Robin as he encroached upon him. He moved faster, the absence of the shoe now long forgotten. It was funny how the corridor felt so much longer when he had such a desperate need to reach the man at the end of it, Robin thought. His feet pounded across the ground, encroaching on the man with the scraggly hair.

Something struck him. A memory. A glimpse of a dream that had plagued him for days. It struck his heart like a ten ton weight.

"_Shit –"_ his mind screamed.

And suddenly, there he was. An inch away from him. A moment from grasping him. So close. He could just reach out and take hold of him, stop him from running, halt him in his tracks. But just a split second before he had a chance, that man - that abhorrent and malicious man spun around on his heels and Robin found a gun in his face.

The sight of Layton pulling the trigger seemed to occur so slowly. Like watching a movie scene in slow motion, Robin watched his finger squeezing the trigger and a deafening sound filled the air. Robin waited. He braced himself for the inevitable. Waited to feel the pain; to feel his body some crashing down.

He knew it was coming. He knew that bullet was going to sink into his flesh.

This was the end, wasn't it? This was how he was going to die.

He waited.

No pain.

Then someone screamed.

That scream was like a blow to the heart.

Robin spun on his heels to see a shock of brown hair collapsing to the ground behind him with Kim beneath it, a bullet in her neck and blood filling the floor.

The world stopped turning.

A heart stopped beating.

A man fled the building.

And in the middle of it all stood Robin; so devastated, so horrified, so confused. Shattered in his heart and shattered in his mind. He stared at his hands. They seemed real enough. He was solid, tangible, as real as the next man. But that bullet had sailed right through.

For a split second, Robin caught a glimpse of eternity. But for now, his own world began to crumble right where he stood.


	71. Chapter 35, 1995: Con Fuoco

**Chapter Thirty Five: 1995**

She didn't know why she was bothering. It was already too late. Reaching out to switch off the television, to cut dead the images of Keats and the life he'd lived back in another world, didn't take away the look on his face or the things that he had already seen. She watched him as he took slow, deliberate steps towards her. His hands were tucked in his pockets, his glasses hiding the full power of those eyes and an angry glower was plastered across his expression.

She slowly got to her feet. Her heart was racing and her mind followed suit, trying to think of an excuse, a way to get out of this mess. She tried to reach for that smile; that mask, to plaster it back over her face.

"You're back early," the smile was there but her voice was shaking, "I thought you had business to attend to."

"Yeah, well," he stepped a little slower, "_business_ didn't take as long as I thought. So I was looking at the possibility of an early lunch."

Alex's smile grew thin.

"That sounds nice," she whispered.

Keats eyes her. He hadn't finished yet. She had a feeling that invitation was about to be immediately revoked.

"Thing is," he carried on, "I got back to my office and I had a little flashing light on my phone. Someone called. Didn't leave a message. Your extension number came up."

Alex bit her lip. She recalled her call to his room, to make sure he'd already gone out.

"Oh, I just needed something that was all," she said weakly.

"Like a key?" Keats raised one eyebrow, "because it's a funny thing, my DI was looking a bit upset."

Alex bit her lip.

"She was?"

"Said she gave you the key to this room. And I thought, why would she want that key? There's nothing down here for her. And…" one more step closer. Now she could feel his breath against her skin. "I'd already told her, _don't go there."_ He stared into her eyes, "didn't I?"

His eyes stole the breath from her body.

"Yes," she whispered.

"So I thought I would come to make sure," He continued, "To see if you –" His sentence was cut off by the primitive noise of a good old fashioned ringtone, the few high-pitched bleeps that were currently the height of modern technology. He hesitated, looked sternly at Alex then pulled out his phone. His eyes darkened a little as he saw the number and took the call.

"Yup, hi. Talk to me…" he paused and began to pace up and down. "Yeah, I know… It's sorted." He started to look angry, "I said I'd done it. What do you take me for?... No, deal suits me perfectly. Why would I… I'm not going to cross you, am I?" he scowled and his pacing became a little more manic, "well I don't _care_ what he said! Remember something, my friend, while you're _in there_ and _I'm out_ here I'm the best buddy pal you've got. Remember that before you start throwing accusations around. Business is sorted. Go back to your gruel and dropping your soap in the shower." He pressed a button and cut the call, then his eyes rose and focused on Alex once again.

She gulped audibly. Her nerves had started to grow. Receiving the call had only served to anger Keats further and now she could see layers of fury building across his face.

"I just wanted to see if there were any cases down here," he whispered, "that's all. Anything for my department."

"And did you?"

"Did I what?"

"Find anything?"

Alex gave a weak smile.

"I haven't really had time to look," she whispered.

Keats came towards her again.

"Well maybe if you focused on your work instead of on watching videos –" he began but as he spoke the TV set switched back on. To Alex's horror, the documentary was still playing out and a picture of Keats was coming into focus on the screen.

"…_Amongst the evidence police seized from his flat were files and documentation he'd been collecting for a number of years," a voice rag out, "thousands of photographs, substances that were later confirmed to be date rape drugs including Rohypnol and GHB, and a terrifying collection of Wham merchandise…"_

Alex's eyes turned to him, wide with realisation as he pushed past her to thump at the power button on the television set. As the screen went blank, her eyes faced him in horror.

"You did, didn't you?" she whispered, "you drugged me." Her mouth hung open just a little as she stared at him, waiting for a response, but he carried on staring at her in silence. "what did you give me? Was it something in the wine? Or the water? Something in the air?"

Keats took a step forward.

"What does it matter? You wanted me, Alex," he whispered.

"Yes," Alex hissed, "I _did_. Once."

"You want me."

"I wanted you – but then you took me without permission," her voice was shaking and her arms were following suit.

"You still craved me. I gave you what you wanted."

"You took what _you_ wanted."

He reached up and brushed her face with his fingers. This time he knew for certain that she flinched.

"You wanted me. Just like you did all those years ago."

"What?"

"You were desperate. You were burning for me."

'_**Was she? Was she really?'**_

That voice was back. It played inside his mind. He closed his eyes and gritted his teeth for a moment to block it out and then turned back to Alex.

"And I had to wait for so long to get a repeat performance," he spoke a little disjointedly, as though his words were hard to force out, "but I got one in the end. Didn't I?"

'_**A repeat performance? Was it? What happened before, Jim?'**_

"_Shut UP!"_

Keats's yell took Alex by surprise She hadn't said a word. She stepped back a little with a gasp and said,

"What? What did I say?"

"Not _you,"_ Keats hissed.

Alex looked around.

"But… but there's no one else there, Jim," she whispered.

There was a click and the television switched on again. Both of them turned, expecting to see more documentary footage of Keats back in the real world but VH1 appeared instead.

"There's no cable down here…" Keats frowned as the picture cleared and a music video began to play. Almost instantly a scowl arrived on his face. He recognised that song.

_# …When she said that you were through_

_I thought that there was nothing that I could do_

_Just because she ran right here_

_Doesn't mean I interfered_

_Now I'm wondering if we can feel the same… #_

"_Alison fucking Moyet!"_ he cried as he ran for the television set and began to pound at the off button.

_# …Cause she keeps whispering your name_

_She keeps on whispering your name_

_Like she's just waiting… #_

"Shut _up!"_

Keats pressed the power button as hard as it would go and finally the song was silenced. He stayed where he was for a moment, breathing heavily, kneeling on the floor until he heard a footstep and looked up.

"Where do you think you're going?"

Alex had only managed to take one step towards the stairs.

"I'm leaving, Jim," she said quietly.

"Is that right?" he got to his feet and grabbed her wrists in an instant. Backing her against the wall, he held them above her head and spat, "you're going nowhere. You're mine now. It's _all_ mine now." The roar of flame lapped the walls for just a moment as his eyes bore into her. She trembled and gasped a whisper of fear as she felt his body edging ever closer to her. "You don't leave me. No one leaves me. You're here for an eternity now."

Alex shook her head.

"I'm going home," she whispered.

A smile graced Keats' features.

"Oh, Alex," he sighed, "where have I heard that before?" he shook his head slowly. "You're not going home. You're here for life." He leaned forward, "_Here. _Fenchurch West. Forever and a day."

"No."

Gripping her wrists with one hand and holding them to the wall, he allowed his other hand to travel slowly down her cheek.

"A lifetime with me," he whispered.

Alex swallowed.

"You shot me," she whispered.

"Now why would I want to do that?"

"I saw you," her voice was louder now, angrier. Scared, but strong. "I watched the whole thing. I saw you in that hospital room, you fired your gun and I went down."

"Going down?" Keats gave an evil smirk, "that sounds like a damn good idea to me…"

"You're sick," Alex spat, "you're twisted and sick."

"You weren't complaining when you were lying back on your desk," Keats told her angrily. He pressed his body firmly against hers, leaving her in no doubt that he was hoping for an encore.

"Get _away_ from me," she hissed.

He stared into her eyes, caught her so deeply it took her breath away.

"Come on, Alex," he whispered, "it was fucking fantastic. Tell me you don't want another go around."

She gulped and swallowed as she stared at him, trying desperately to speak up, to move, to fight but he'd hooked her. He'd caught her with that stare and pulled her in. She opened her mouth a fraction and tried to speak but the words wouldn't come forth. As she faltered she felt his hot breath encroaching and she couldn't stop her eyes from closing. Her whole body buzzed and tingled as she felt his lips against hers again, stealing her sense and taking her mind but as she felt every inch of her swaying to his command there were footsteps, fast and insistent, clattering down the stairs until they arrived at the doorway with a scream.

"_Keats!"_

Everyone, and everything, froze on the spot. Keats. Alex. The kiss. Even the air seemed to stay deadly still for a moment. Finally, when seconds had passed without action Keats slowly turned around. He loosened his grip on her arms and she felt her body falling. She barely caught herself before she dropped to the floor and slowly staggered upright, leaning against the wall, a little giddy from the abrupt ending of his spell.

Keats's eyes already knew what they were going to spy before they caught sight of him. He knew that voice.

"Well, Simon," he began darkly, "I didn't think I would be seeing you here. I thought you turned down your transfer to Fenchurch West.

Simon stared at him. His throat gave and wobbled as he swallowed. The moment was terribly laden, full of things that he didn't know how to express. His eyes were heavy and burned with the secrets that he'd learnt; the secrets that were too much for him to keep. His stare held Keats as he finally whispered;

"I know everything."

Keats stared back. Simon's arrival had caught him off guard and his words seemed to hold little meaning. He gave a half-laugh and raised an eyebrow.

"Everything?" he repeated, "the square route of Pi? The meaning of life? The off-side rule?"

Simon just stared. Inside him there was a tiny part of him that felt guilty. Guilty for what he was about to do.

"Everything about you," he whispered.

"Bet you can't guess what colour my underpants are," said Keats.

Simon looked past the jokes and the mocking. This wasn't the time.

"I know what made you," he whispered, his eyes fixed upon him.

"You finally had that talk about the birds and the bees then?" asked Keats, "did Gene take pity on you and fill in all the blanks?" He laughed, "he's probably _firing_ blanks too."

"I know why you really came to Fenchurch East," Simon said quietly, "and I know why you really stayed."

"Well it wasn't for the catering," said Keats, "or the woman in the canteen with the enormous backside."

"Stop it," hissed Simon. His eyes were trained on Keats. They didn't move, and he didn't flinch. "It's Gene. He's the one who turned you this way."

"Oh, everything comes back to that lump of lard," Keats rolled his eyes, "I think you're developing a bit of an obsession there, Simon."

"You're the one with the obsession," Simon shook his head, "what's with the remodelling, Keats? You've spent the last god knows how long trying to be Gene. All you've got left to do is dying your hair and getting tinted contact lenses." He shook his head slowly. "That's not what I'm here for. I'm not here to argue with you. I know." He looked at him intensely. "I _know."_

"Didn't know I had _this _though," he said as he reached for his gun and aimed it toward Alex. Her eyes opened wide and shock filled her expression.

Simon swallowed. He backed up a little against the wall.

"OK," he began, "OK, stay calm, Keats." He paused, "I know you won't hurt her."

"You seem to _know_ a lot today," Keats spat angrily, "I've already shot her once, I'll do it again."

Simon shook his head a little.

"You shot her by accident," he said quietly, "we all know that. Those shots were random. You were as devastated as we were to see her fall." He took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. His eyes fixed upon Keats again. "You came to Fenchurch East because there were suspicions that Gene had forgotten, didn't you." It was a statement rather than a question and his strong tone seemed to strike Keats dumb for a moment. When he finally found his voice again he hissed,

"Gene Hunt shot his DI on the job and someone had to investigate. He fled the country like a criminal."

"But that's not why you came. Not really."

"His previous DI died under mysterious circumstances. Hunt's respect for protocols left little to be desired. Someone had to come in and clean this mess up!"

"You were there to see if Gene had forgotten," Simon cried, "_Policing the police who don't know they're dead_. That's what you did, wasn't it?"

"So?" Keats suspected there was little use keeping up the pretence by this point. "It was my job, I was just following orders."

"And that's what you're so good at, isn't it?" Simon took a step forward. He stared him right in the eye. "Following procedure. Respecting the protocols. Following every instruction to the letter. Couldn't be more of an opposite of Gene if you tried." He looked at him darkly. "An opposite in every way."

"Yeah," Keats started to smirk, "like in the trouser department."

"Huh! I've seen your bright red penis extension in the car park!" Simon told him, "you boast too much."

"There's no competition in that department. Mister Micro-penis versus me. Course, you'll have to ask Alex to make the comparison."

"This isn't that Alex," Simon said quietly, "but of course, you know that.,"

Keats began to bristle.

"Shut up, Simon."

"This might look like her, but it's not the woman you wanted, is it?"

"I told you to shut your face!"

"And _she_ didn't give you what you wanted," Simon continued, "did she?"

Keats clutched his gun and almost spat feathers.

"If you don't shut your moth I'll jam this in it to do the job instead!" he cried but he was interrupted by the sudden noise of the television starting up and Alison Moyet completing her song.

# …If it's just a little fling a simple thing

I'll try not to pretend

If it's just for jealousy she's using me

That might be hard to mend…#

"Oh not _you_ again!"he cried. He stomped to the TV and poked violently at the button but the TV kept playing.

# …Oh what else can I do  
>But try to give her more than she got from you… #<p>

"_Off!"_ he yelled.

Simon glanced at Alex and motioned for her to move towards the stairs but she was frozen with fear and her eyes were stuck on Keats.

# …And when she wakes up suddenly  
>and she says you name to me<br>I'll just hope its force of habit  
>and not need… #<p>

"_No!"_ he screamed, his lungs burning with anger and frustration.

The voice taunted him again in his mind, asking the same question over and over –

'_**Whose name did she say, Jim? Who did she want? Whose name was it again? Come on, Jim, you remember, don't you…'**_

"_No!"_

He spun around, sending a flurry of flame across the walls in that motion. Just as Alex broke from the trance she seemed to be in and started to move closer to the stairs he spotted her and took action. He'd already let one Alex slip away. He wasn't going to let Alex number two slip through his fingers.

"You're coming with me," he spat as he grabbed her by the back of her hair and, holding her firmly with one hand, pressed the gun to her head with the other. "Up those stairs!"

She squealed and gasped in fear as he pushed her forward and hustled her up the staircase. He knew that Simon was just a step behind him but he needed to wait for the right moment to act and, as he heard the footsteps hurrying closer he spun around and kicked out, knocking Simon backwards, feet over head, right to the bottom of the staircase.

In the time that it took for Simon to get to his feet, dust himself off and take up the chase Keats and Alex had disappeared to one end of the corridor or the other The sound of a lift door pinging alerted Simon to their whereabouts and he raced along a second too late as the final crack of light between he heavy metal doors vanished and the lift began to rise.

"_Shit!"_ he cried. Staring at the display above the list he saw it go from one floor to another, up and up. 1, 2, 3… it could have been going anywhere. Anywhere at all. But something inside told him exactly where they were heading.

"Oh _no,_ Keats, not the roof again," he mumbled, heading to the nearest staircase and hurtling up the steps two at a time, "why is it always one extreme or the other with you? Always right at the top or right down at the bottom?"

Faster his legs carried him, up one flight then another, always checking the lift display to make sure he was still going in the right direction. He found himself finally at the top floor; the lift doors were open but Keats and Alex were nowhere in sight. He scanned the corridor from one end to the other. At one end was a door marked _"Roof: Caution; high altitude."_

"Thanks for the warning," Simon mumbled. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Damn his bloody vertigo. It was too late to worry about that now though. He knew he had to push that out of his mind and just _go. _Pushing open the door and emerging onto the roof he found the sky almost clear, bright and lacking in cloud save for a few fluffy white ones that punctuated the blue. The brightness of the sun almost blinded him for a moment but he saw Keats and Alex heading across to the fire escape. His belly flip-flopped at the sight, recalling a plunging Keats taking off over the side of the hospital roof just a few weeks earlier.

"_No!"_ he cried, making a run for them but Keats stopped short of the edge and held the gun to Alex's head again.

"Leave us alone, Simon," he spat, "no room for you in this picture."

"Alex doesn't belong to you," Simon said calmly, or as calmly as his vertigo and spinning head would allow. Suddenly he would have given anything for Gene's bottle of scotch and a good dose of Dutch courage. "She needs to go home."

"She's staying with me!"

"She needs to go back to her daughter," Simon said firmly, "we need to work out how to send her back so that we can stand some chance of getting back the Alex _we_ know."

"Talking bollocks again, Simon," Keats warned.

"And I know you stand there making noises about her not going anywhere, and how you've 'got' her," Simon held his jaw firm, "but she'd not even the Alex you want."

Simon's words echoed the voice in his head. He clasped both Alex and his gun tightly as he stared at him.

"What would _you_ know, Simon?" he spat, "you ever seen in here?" he used his gun to tap his own head.

Simon stared at him, then slowly he nodded.

"I have, Keats," he whispered. His face became sad and there was a heavy feeling in his chest. "And I'm sorry."

Keats stared back at him. His words held no meaning.

"_Sorry?"_ he repeated, "for what?"

"For what happened to you," Simon's voice was low now. He swallowed and felt tears come to his eyes, He couldn't help it. "You came here to find out if Gene had forgotten," he whispered, "and you found something you weren't expecting. It corrupted you. You were just a man –"

"I've never been _just_ a man, Simon."

"Oh yes you have," Simon nodded firmly, "you were a hurt man. A scorned man. A spurned man. But still a man. Still human."

"Bollocks."

"How long have you been here, Keats?" Simon asked, "What year did you arrive in?" His tongue ran across his lips as he waited for a response. "Seventy two? Three? It had to have been some time ago because you must have been here a few years already when you met Gene. You were a PC back home, weren't you?" he watched and waited. No response. "Were you still a PC when you came here? Or were you a DC?" he took a deep breath. "Couldn't have been much more than that. Not like you were going to wake up a detective chief inspector. You must have worked hard. Worked your way through the ranks." He saw Keats swallow hard. "DCI. You earned that fair and square. But things _weren't_ fair, were they? You didn't get a department to run. No fast-track for you." He hesitated as he saw Keats's eye begin to twitch. "No, you don't get to do all the soul-saving, because you're a pen-pusher._ Policing the police. _That was it, right?"

Keats stared back. He took in a deep breath.

"It's not a popular job but someone has to do it," he said.

"Because you were a stickler for rules, weren't you?" said Simon, "stuck to every word of procedure. Protocol was your middle name. Total opposite of Gene, huh?" he saw Keats' face darken at that mention. "Gene didn't do a thing by the book, did he? He got the results but, boy, did he flout the rules." He hesitated. "And you couldn't bear that, because look what happened when your superior officer abandoned the proper procedures? You ended up here. Didn't you?"

Keats swallowed.

"Why do I need a trip down memory lane?" he spat.

Simon stared on.

"When you went to Fenchurch East you found something you weren't expecting," he whispered, "because Gene was different. He was different to all the other DCIs, wasn't he?"

"Fatter and thicker," said Keats.

Simon shook his head slowly.

"He's got a heart," he almost choked on the words that followed, "and that wasn't _'right'_. It was supposed to be a job. Do your duty, send them to the pub, that's it. But Gene didn't do that. He took every officer and detective that worked with him and helped them. He was their guide, their mentor, their confidante. Not in the usual sense, maybe – it's not like you'd go to Gene for tea and sympathy. But he cared about each and every one of them _every last damn one._ He'd have my balls for saying this but," he hesitated and closed his eyes. "He loved them all. He can't even say that word, but it's true. And that's where the problem lies." He hung his head a little. "He had such power. It should have just been a job but it wasn't to him, it was so much more. And as time went by, the more he cared and the more good he tried to do, the more…" he shook his head slightly as the secret burned him, "the more evilness and bad energy was created to balance out his heart and his soul. And when you came here, so bitter and twisted, passed over for a job like Gene's, desperately seeking the power, following every rule to the letter you absorbed all that energy. That malevolence. You became Gene's equal and exact opposite." He swallowed hard. "You were created by Gene."

Keats's face twisted. It contorted as he shook and trembled. The words stung his body like a bed or nettles and his head began to throb and hurt. The truth was painful to all. Damaging. _Dangerous._

"It wasn't his job to care," he spat.

Simon looked at him. Something approaching pity crept into his expression.

"He was supposed to be neutral but he couldn't do it," he whispered, "That's not Gene. But if he'd done his job the way he was _supposed_ to then you would never have changed. His energy would never have corrupted you and you would still be a man." To his shock he felt a tear starting to fall from the corner of his eye He took in a deep breath and wiped it away. "You were just a man. You were a man who'd had a rough life, on both sides of the line, but you were still a man and Gene changed you. The energy… the one that was created to balance out his heart… it made you become this twisted, evil soul. He didn't do it purposely. He didn't even _know_. He still doesn't. It would kill him if he ever found out."

"_I'm not dead yet, Shoebury."_

Those words just about stopped Simon's heart. He closed his eyes tightly and tried to pretend that the voice he'd heard was all in his mind. He didn't want to believe that it was Gene. He didn't want to believe he was standing behind him. Very slowly he opened his eyes and turned around to face what he wanted to wish away. Behind him stood Gene, his brow creased, his eyes dark and his expression one of torment. He stared at Simon, just stared.

"How long -?" Simon whispered.

"Too long."

Simon's heart sank. He felt a horrible churning deep inside. He closed his eyes and cursed silently to the clear blue sky. With the rush of the air and the noise of the traffic below he hadn't heard footsteps or the approaching figures, and of course Keats wasn't going to hold up his hand to silence him with a friendly warning.

He choked back a sob of anger and frustration. Despite his attempts to stall Gene it just hadn't been enough. He glanced at Kim who stood beside him, her face pained and stricken, then looked back at the broken man he'd tried so hard to protect.

"_Gene,"_ he whispered. He looked at him with his eyes wide. He wished he could say something to neutralise the words that Gene had heard, to take them back, but there was nothing he could do.

"_That,"_ Gene's eyes shifted to Keats like a pointing finger, "exists because of me?"

Simon closed his eyes. He gave a staggered nod, desperately trying to hold back tears.

"You were just supposed to do your job but you cared too much," he whispered, "You couldn't just move people on. You say you don't have friends…" Simon shook his head slowly. "That's because you were more than that to them. Like some kind of guardian angel."

"Then I must have mislaid me wings and halo somewhere, and I don't care for harp music," Gene said grimly.

Simon gave a sigh and shook his head.

"Not_ literally_, Gene," he said, "and it's not something you _try _to do, it's just there in your heart and you can't fight it, because – for all you do, for all the rules you break and the protocols you piss on and all the mistakes you've made in the past…" he looked at him sincerely, "you're a good man." His eyes turned to Keats. "_He,"_ he began, "was the complete opposite of you. You couldn't abide the paperwork and procedures, while he lived for them. And I understand why…" he addressed Keats now, "your past. That's why it was important to you. You hated Gene so much when you came here - you saw that he was everything you couldn't stomach. You hated the way he worked and you hated it even more for the fact that he had total respect from his team and results that shone amongst the other stations in the country."

Keats was staring on. He'd been silent for so long. Simon's words seemed to bounce around the air, echoing through his ears. He tried to block them out, but they were working hard to force their way through.

"You think you know so much about me," he sneered, "you know nothing, Simon. Not really."

"I know enough," Simon said quietly, "I know you were nto see if Gene had forgotten. If he'd forgotten who he was. What his _world_ was about. I know both Sam Tyler and Alex were eyed for promotion and Gene was seem as standing in the way of their progress. I know that to start with you," he closed his eyes for a second, faltering a little, "I know that, right back at the start, you arrived as a man set on saving Alex from going the same way as Sam Tyler. You didn't want Gene to send her the same way. You wanted her to take an equal footing to Gene and –" he indicated the world around them, "rightly so. She's done a fantastic job. _Amazing._ But you got it all wrong. Gene wasn't trying to stand in her way, not at all, and he genuinely had forgotten, but you had to turn it into something so much darker."

"He had _ruined_ that station!" Keats cried, "he'd eroded both the paintwork and the people."

"He had everything you wanted," Simon continued, "he had power, respect and you could see the bond he had with Alex." He took a deep breath. "You fell for her before you even _met_ her. Didn't you?"

Those words hit Keats like a stab in the chest. He drew in a sharp breath and his eyes bolted.

"What?"

"You pored over her files, read everything you could about her. You were completely smitten with her."

Keats glowered at Simon.

"What would you know?" he challenged, "huh? Think just because you go in for the mushy stuff then everyone's got to be in love?"

Simon looked at him.

"I never said love," he pointed out.

"What?"

"You said it, not me."

Keats frowned, a laugh of ironic confusion emanating from his lips.

"You've cracked, Simon. You come up here, telling me this shit, and you're the one with brain cells escaping through those ears left, right and centre."

"You fell in love," Simon whispered, "But all the time you were falling more and more deeply for Alex the dark energy was slowly taking you over too. The more you wanted her, the more the monster was pushing her away. Until," he flinched a little as his eyes turned to Gene. He was already looking like a broken man and Simon was about to make it worse. But he _had_ warned him he was better not knowing. Over and over again. "Until you took things too far and she rejected you. Because she wanted someone else."

"She was _mine!"_ Keats spat. There was no holding back now, "I wanted her, and I had her, and she wanted _me!"_

Simon shook his head.

"She wanted Gene," he said, "just like she always has. And the second she said his name," Simon almost hated himself for it but he felt an enormous sense of pity now, "you broke inside. There was nothing holding back the monster by then."

Keats stared at Alex as he held her firmly, the gun trained on her all the time. He stared into her eyes; the eyes he'd seen such need and passion in before he ruined everything with his greed and let the demon loose into the air. They were not the same eyes he'd looked upon all those years ago. They told a different story. If the eyes were the window to the soul, he realised, then staring into hers only went to prove that Simon and his inner voice had been right. This was not the Alex he wanted. This was not the Alex he –

The one that he…

He couldn't even think the word, couldn't allow his thoughts to fall to a human emotion. He gave an angry scream and gripped her tighter, causing her to gasp and cry out in fear and pain.

"Let her go now, Jimbo," Gene's voice finally barked out and Keats's eyes turned to him.

"Oh, found your voice at last have you?" he cried, "now you've finished listening to Mini Hunt telling his bedtime story?"

Gene swallowed down the anger and the bile that the truth had brought into his bones and his blood. The thought that he's been responsible in _any_ way for creating that monster made him sick to his stomach but while that truth would burn him and hurt him deeply inside so did the fact that he and his Bolly were still apart.

"You know this isn't Alex," his voice was loud, strong and commanding, "and if what Shoe-Boy says is true then she's not even who you're interested in. So help us to help _her_ go home."

Simon cringed. _Shoe-Boy_. Things were definitely bad. He knew he was going to regret the whole handcuffing incident.

"You're not happy with me," he glanced at Gene, "are you?"

"That's the finer way of putting it," Gene spat angrily, "you're going to be one less detective chief inspector for Jimbo to suck the good out of when you get back. I'm demoting you!"

"What the hell to?"

"To _General Arse_," snapped Gene.

Simon rolled his eyes a little and turned back to Keats. He seemed to shake and tremble on the spot. He looked a little like a nuclear reactor about to go into meltdown. Simon knew that he had to keep going; to keep on pushing and throw everything he had at him. He just hoped the same truths wouldn't send Gene into meltdown in the process.

"If you'd just been in and out of the station as you were supposed to be then you would probably have stayed just the way you were," he began, "but you didn't did you? You began an investigation and the longer you spent there the more the energy corrupted you. That's why you were so different when you first arrived. You might have been a twat but at least you were human."

Finally Gene had something to smile about.

"Well at least you got that much right" he said.

"That's why Alex said you were different at first," Simon continued, "that's why your files start out normal and become…" he tried to think of the right word, "_warped._ Twisted. Maniacal. Your transition was slow… I read the whole thing, Keats. That file, it read more like a bloody diary. And that part, where you took that girl?" he tried to recall the details, "_Louise?"_ he shook his head in horror and disgust. "That was the first time, right?" his mouth felt dry. "You know how much I hate that? I've only done it once but I still have nightmares about Susannah. But_ you? _You treated it like some kind of status symbol. You weren't supposed to be able to do that, were you? You were DCI by name only. Yours really was just a rank. You weren't in a position of power. You had no base. Nowhere to call home. But being _here…_ being around Gene… absorbing that energy, that opposite, evil energy, it gave you that power, right?"

Keats's eyes were flashing with fury.

"That should have been mine anyway!" he cried, "I earned that right! I worked every fucking hour! I did everything right and I got nothing in return! _Nothing!"_

"From there it was a downwards spiral," Simon said quietly, "wasn't it?"

Keats swallowed. He stared at Simon and saw a look of sadness on his face.

"What are you weeping for, DCI Shoebury?" he sneered, "Does it matter how I got here? I'm on the winning side _now."_

Simon stared at him. There was one more part to this he had to say. His own culpability in Keats's corruption.

"There's more," he said, his body feeling heavy.

"Oh great, there's _more_ to this story!" cried Keats, "how glad I am to hear that. I was worried we were coming to the end!"

Simon looked grim.

"When Gene killed you," he began, "you left this world. You went back to your own time. That energy travelled with you. You took that malevolence back to the real world and it destroyed lives. Almost destroyed _mine_. Then when you came back _here…"_

"When you murdered the fuck out of me," Keats corrected.

Simon flinched at the memory. He had to force himself to carry on.

"…Ten years had passed in your absence," he continued, "that was a lot of negative, evil energy building up with no one who was willing to take it on." He looked at Gene. "But by now…. By now it was even greater, because Gene had Alex by his side. And you were right – she _was_ the best of them all and she did her job so very well, but her heart is as big as Gene's."

"Can you stop making it sound like I'm some big poofy agony aunt?" Gene said angrily.

"And _then,"_ Simon ignored him, "it got even worse. Because I…" he shook his head, "I'm the same. I can't be cold. I can't be clinical. I want to help."

"The Samaritans are always looking for people like you," Keats sneered, "Go and apply."

"And that's never going to change," Simon continued, "none of us are ever going to be the kind of DCIs you want us to be. We can't keep a step back and wave people on heartlessly. We're always going to care." His eyes turned to Gene, "and as long as we're here… and as long as we 're doing that… we're going to be creating that same opposite, evil energy that _he's_ going to keep absorbing." He hung his head. "I'm sorry, Gene." His heart felt like it was going to explode with pain. "Keats is the way he is because of the man you are. And as long as you are doing your job…" he finally met his stare, "and as long as you care… Keats is going to keep growing darker." He saw Gene hang his own head, the true enormity of the situation finally grasping him and beginning to sink in. He looked back at Keats. "It was when you came back and took ten years' worth of malevolence that things really moved on, wasn't it?" he asked, "that energy was enough to put you on an equal footing with Gene for the first time. You got a whole station to yourself. Your own department. Your own team. You've even got the bloody front _doors _now!" He glanced at his hostage. "And you had your very own Alex for a while."

"Still have," Keats spat.

Gene stared at Simon.

"Well, Shoebury?"

Simon glanced around.

"Well what?"

Gene took a deep breath.

"You found yer truth," he said, "you found what made him this way. So what's yer follow-up plan? Weren't you supposed to turn him around and take away his horns and tail by now?"

Simon's expression fell. He'd thought the truth would do it. He really had. Instead of that, his words had served only to make Keats angrier and more frantic.

"Gene, I don't know," he said, starting to feel anxious, "I thought that if –" he paused as he gave an awkward belch. Gene frowned at him.

"Got a problem Shoebury?"

Simon frowned.

"I think I've got indigestion," he mumbled.

"That'll be that extra iron you've added into yer diet," Gene said crossly.

"It was for your own good!" Simon protested, "I didn't want you to hear all this! I thought it would take Kim ages to get you free!"

"Yeah, well," Gene narrowed his eyes, "she turned out to be more adept with cutty open things than you are." He paused. "Swallowing that key was a bit over-the-top, wasn't it?"

"I couldn't think where else to hide it!" Simon protested as he burped again. "Regretting it now though,"

"Never mind," Gene began crossly, "I'm sure he's got an autograph or two around here that will fast-track that key back out of you."

From a slight distance an annoyed Alex tried to attract their attention.

"Um, _hello?"_ she said urgently, her eyes wide with annoyance, "Hostage here! Gun to head!"

All eyes turned back to her and to Keats. Simon bit his lip and began to worry. His truth had failed to set the man forth and there seemed to be no way out of this situation. But another voice came forward. A voice that had been quiet the whole time.

"I've seen the human side."

All eyes turned around to Kim. She had been silent, watching, too afraid to speak or to even move. Something changed inside of her now. As she'd listened to everything Simon said, it began to make sense to her.

"Kim," Simon began quietly. He wasn't sure what he was going to say. To warn her to be careful? To tell her she didn't have to say anything she didn't want to? Kim took a step closer. There was a strange expression on her face. Simon had seen it before. He'd seen it in her hospital room, just after they'd watched the tape of Keats's many deaths and demises. It was a look of pure sympathy. Not pity. _Sympathy._

"It doesn't come out of there very often," she said quietly, "but it's there."

Keats trained his eyes upon her. He held Alex firmly and the gun never moved from her head but his lip trembled a little. It was almost imperceptible.

"You all talk crap about a man and a monster," he hissed, "there's just me. Alright? It's just _me."_

"Just you, and a gun?" Kim asked. She took another step forward and watched him bristle. "You don't need Alex, Jim. Please let her go." She watched his eyes glisten in the bright sunshine and saw his adam's apple rise and fall as he swallowed. "You won't shoot her. I know that. Because even though inside her mind it's not the Alex you wanted, you know if you hurt her then the other one might never get back."

Keats stared at her. He began to slowly shake his head.

"Some little metal girl thinks she can get inside my head?"

Kim sighed sadly.

"No," she said quietly, "you got into mine. Remember?" she took a deep breath as a tear threatened to form. "And while you forced your way into my mind, you left enough of yourself there for me to know you. Inside and out."

Keats shook his head again, starting slowly but gathering speed.

"No, _no,"_ he said, "What would I want with _you?_ More metal than flesh."

"That's not what you used to say," Kim said quietly.

Simon swallowed.

"That's the other thing that you do so well, isn't it?" his voice shook slightly, "it's like you've got a filing cabinet in your head. You make a huge mistake, close that door, lock it up and leave it alone for months… _years…_ however long, until you need to reach in and pull that memory out again. That's how you can move from one thing to another so quickly. How you can just shut off one whole chunk of your life and move onto another. How you cope with the guilt."

"_Guilt?"_ Keats said the word as though it was the punch line of a joke.

"But that sneaks out every now and then, doesn't it?" Simon challenged.

Kim's eyes were wide and sad. She stared at him.

"Like it did with me," she whispered.

Keats swallowed. His eyes were fixed upon her and his hand began to waver.

"When?" he whispered.

"When I lost the baby," the words began to choke her up. Ever since it happened Kim had been trying hard to block it out. She had guilt of her own attached to her loss and she couldn't face it yet. Perhaps she was doing the same thing as Keats, the notion struck her. Filing it away. Moving onto the next thing. She closed her eyes. "You begged me for forgiveness," she whispered.

Keats's eyes bolted and his body grew stiff in shock.

"You're talking out your bloody inked backside!" he cried.

Kim shook her head.

"And I heard you. One of those nights. When you thought I was asleep."

Keats rang his tongue around his lips, they felt so dry now.

"What?"

"You said things to me," her voice trembled, "Sometimes I thought I was dreaming, but…" she bit her lip. "And sometimes you really meant it. And other times, you just said it to get what you wanted. But those times that you meant it…"

Keats took a slight step backwards.

"What?" he hissed.

Kim bit her lip.

"I knew that you did," she whispered.

"Did what?"

"You loved her," Simon spoke.

Keats's eyes turned to him, flashing with anger.

"Total shit!"

"You did!" cried Kim, "sometimes you can feel."

"I don't _want_ to feel!"

There it was. There was a hint of _him._ A hint of the man, just for a second. That hint set Simon's heart on fire with hope.

"But you _do," _he said, "sometimes. You try to block it but sometimes it proves too strong."

"No."

"Like when you're with Kim, or with Alex."

"No!"

"Or when you watched the video, Jimbo," Gene finally spoke again. He stared at him. "Yer death. Again and again. How did that make you feel? Hmm?"

"It made me feel…" Keats's eyes grew frantic, "It made me feel…"

He couldn't finish his sentence. He'd said too much already.,

It made him _feel._

"You're human, Jim," Kim whispered. She swallowed, eyes filling with tears, "somewhere inside." She glanced at Alex. "Let her go. You're not going to shoot her. You won't hurt her. Let her go and be that man."

"I don't fucking _want_ to be a 'man'!" Keats screamed.

"Why not?" Gene demanded, "Come on, Jimbo – tell us! Tell us what it's really like being a monster. Tell us what it's like with all that blood on yer hands. Can you ever wash them clean?"

"Shut your mouth!"

"I'm seeing Lady Macbeth as I look at you now, Jimbo."

"Shut your big fat mouth!"

"How's that guilt doing now? Is it coming up? Feels a bit like that fire you keep in yer basement?"

"I don't _feel!"_ screamed Keats.

"Why not?" Gene challenged, "Come on, Jimbo – you can tell us! What are you so afraid of? Why are you too chicken to be a man?"

"Because," Keats screamed, "it hurts too… fucking… _much!"_

Something blew up inside of him. He held Alex firmly by her hair, then pushed her hard across the roof into the waiting crowd before turning around and running for the edge.

"Shit! He's going to take a running jump again!" Simon screamed. He swallowed back his vertigo and took his heart in his hands to chase after him. He didn't think he could ever reach him in time but Keats's busted toe slowed him down a little and Simon grasped him before he could reach the edge, He used every ounce of strength in his body to pull him backwards and threw him to the ground but Keats quickly scrambled back to his feet. With Simon standing by the edge of the roof he couldn't take the easy way out so he doubled back and ran for the exit that led back into the building.

Simon took chase with Kim following fast behind while Gene helped Alex up from the floor. As he gripped her hand and pulled her to her feet he realised it was the first time that she – _this_ Alex – had not flinched at his touch.

"You OK?" he asked.

Alex straightened up her clothes. She eyed him seriously.

"Just because it turns out I apparently sided with a twisted megalomaniac, doesn't mean I have forgiven you for calling me Bowls," she said and took off through the door with Gene in hot pursuit.

~x~

Keats blocked out the pain in his toe. That was easy to fight. It was the pain in his heart and in his head that was harder to control. He tried to fight it as he threw himself down the corridor, moving his feet as fast as they could take him. He belted down a staircase and through another corridor. He knew there was a door to the fire escape somewhere close-by. If he could only get through there then he could make a fast exit.

Simon had other ideas. He was not going to let Keats get away again. Not with all he'd learnt.

"Keats!" He screamed his name as his feet pounded along the corridor after him. _"Keats!"_ He didn't know what he was going to do or say when he caught up to him but there had to be a way to get that human side back out.

"Oi!" a voice from behind him yelled, "get that demon turd, Shoebury. I still have an appointment with a blunt object and his bollocks for what he's done to my Bolly's body!"

"_My_ body," an indignant voice piped up.

"A body that you've decorated with face paints and a Jimbo _My First Hairdresser kit!" _Gene told her furiously, "when Bolly gets back…"

"Not looking likely if you two don't shut the hell up and run faster!" cried Simon.

He continued to run. He was speeding up now; Keats was closer, ever closer. Surely he could almost reach out now; to reach out and grasp him. Suddenly a cold feeling fell upon Simon's shoulders. It filtered through his body as a sense of familiarity began to get to him. He flashed back to a dream; a nightmare, a night-time thought that had plagued him for days on end. With an instance of realisation that came a moment too late he gave a gasp and tried to stop in his tracks

The evil man before him spun around, his gun held aloft and automatically he squeezed the trigger. Simon closed his eyes, awaiting the feeling of the pain that he felt sure was coming. Being indestructible had not yet sunk in, not to him nor, it seemed, to Keats. But as he waited, braced himself, prepared for the worst there was an agonised cry and he spun around to see a shock of short, cropped blonde hair tumbling to the ground.

"_Kim!"_ he screamed without even realising it.

From that painful, tormented moment onwards it felt like things started to move in slow motion.

There was the falling of Kim to the floor, the blood pumping from her neck, the shock and the screams from those around her.

There was Alex, reeling backwards, the instinctive arm that Gene extended around her shoulders as she held her hand to her mouth.

There was Simon, his hands thrown to his face in a move of devastation.

And there was Keats.

There was his expression. The twisting, contorting agony that spread across his features. The darkness that fought with it. The scream that came from deep within him. The thoughts and memories and many, many layered emotions that came flooding back from his own mental archives of Kim; of the time he'd spent bending her around his little finger, creeping into her mind, snaring her, keeping her for his own purpose.

Of the nights he watched her sleeping. Of the times he looked upon her features and saw the beauty they held. Of the times she'd made his heart beat faster. Of the times she'd made him feel alive.

Of the times she'd made him _feel._

"My god," his voice was broken like a dropped glass tumbling onto a hard floor. He swallowed and stumbled backwards. "No…" he stared at the shocked faces, his tongue trying desperately to moisten his lips, "I didn't… I didn't mean… No, I didn't…I _didn't…_"

"You…" Simon's eyes turned to him with a fury he had rarely felt, _"Fucking…_" he pulled himself to his highest height and made a lunge forward _"Bastard!"_

Keats froze for a split second that felt like forever. His eyes moved from the lifeless Kim to the anger of Simon and the absolute shock of Gene and Alex. His heart may as well have exploded from the agony he felt at that moment. His mind stopped working and his body ran on instinct and before anyone could react he thrust open the doors to the fire escape and began to run; to run from the scene, to run from his guilt, to run from the blood that would grace his hand forever. Without question Simon's feet began to move. He took two strides forward then looked behind him where Gene was lowering himself over Kim. Instantly his heart grew dark and his eyes filled with tears he was determined not to let fall.

"_No,_ Gene," he barked, "This is not her time"

Gene looked up.

"Simon –"

"It's _not,_ Gene" Simon cried, "Get her to hospital! I'm going after Keats!"

"_Simon!"_

Simon turned to Gene with a look in his eyes that Gene had never seen before.

"Drive her. _Now._ With your driving skills you'll outrun any ambulance."

"_Simon!"_

"Just do it!" Simon yelled, before running after Keats.

Alex looked from Simon to Gene to Kim. Confusion gripped her. The one person she'd trusted had turned out to be a vessel for evilness. She didn't know what she could do now. Didn't know where to turn or who to trust, but she did know that her fury with Keats was burning strongly.

Without waiting a second longer she moved past Gene and took up the chase, much to Gene's horror.

"_Alex!"_ he cried, "where the bleeding hell do you think you're going?"

"To see a man about a castration!" she yelled and carried on running.

"_Drake!"_ screamed Gene, "Get back here! That's not your body, and I don't want you busting it up! _Drake!"_

But his screams fell on deaf ears.

His eyes turned downwards. There was a soul itching to rise from Kim's body. Gene drew his expression into a firm stare, then scooped her up.

"Shoebury's not ready to let you go, Stringer," he mumbled, "don't let him down."

He clung to her tightly as he swept her out of the corridor, down endless stairs and moved quickly out to his car. Maybe this _wasn't_ her time. Somehow this one wasn't his to call.

He took a deep breath as he prepared to drive her to hospital. Fear raged through his body. Alex was out there in pursuit of Keats and that body wasn't hers to abuse. For the sake of his Bolly he begged silently for her to stay safe. The alternative wasn't worth thinking about.

If Jimbo's truth had come close to killing him then losing her would just about finish the job.

**~xXx~**

_**And on that note, this story has officially become the longest A2A story on the whole of FFnet! Oh my goodness! No wonder my brain is mashed!**_

_**Thank you so much for staying on this journey - still a little while to go yet! –x-**_


	72. Chapter 36, 2011: A Niente

_**A/N: OK, I have played and played with the number of chapters and arrangement of chapters to post tonight and tomorrow and have decided to post a double dose tonight, followed by 2 chapters tomorrow, but tomorrow's are slightly unusual chapters – all will become clear at the time!**_

**Chapter Thirty Six: 2011**

It felt as though time moved so slowly that the world had ground to a halt. In the aftermath of the bullet three terrified faces froze, stone-still. A second passed that felt like an eternity. After that eternal second Robin turned to Alex with eyes wide, petrified, confused and desperate. He looked back at his hands, then at Kim on the floor. It felt like there was a never-ending silence, at least inside his mind if not elsewhere. Then there was screaming even though he couldn't work out whose voice the screams came from deep within.

He felt himself stumble, his head spinning. A tingle ran through him that he couldn't explain and suddenly he realised Alex and Kelly were staring at him expectantly. Why were they looking at _him?_ Like he was supposed to do something? It's not like he was the highest ranking idiot in this mess of cops and ex cops and possibly dead cops. Alex seemed to be hovering; hesitating. For a moment she looked for all the world as though she was about to reach down to her but at the last moment she stopped and looked back at Robin. He swallowed as he tried to work out what to say. Finally he looked at Kelly.

"Well _go_ on then!" he cried, "You're supposed to be the bloody first aid representative in the division!"

Alex glanced from him to Kelly. Her mind fell upon another first aid 'expert'. She'd have given anything for Susannah to be there right then.

As though waking from a dream Kelly looked down at Kim, immediately dropped to her knees and started checking her over, then began a resuscitation attempt. Robin looked at Alex, at her stricken face. Frozen in time. He glanced at the open fire exit and then back to her.

"We've got to get him," he said quickly.

"But Kim –" Alex's voice was loaded with tears.

"I know, I know, but we can't let him get away with this," Robin insisted, shaking a little as he realised that bullet was meant for him. He grabbed her wrist and pulled her out onto the fire exit in time to see Evan's car beginning to pull away.

"Shit! Evan left his car open!" hissed Alex as they tore down flights of rickety stairs.

Robin reached into his pockets and flapped a little.

"Shit! Where's my keys?"

"I've still got them," said Alex as they reached the bottom of the stairs. She held them up, rattled them and dived for the driver's side.

"Oh no, not Gene Hunt-style driving again," Robin begged, his stomach turning already. Reluctantly he climbed in the passenger seat and barely closed the door before Alex stepped on the accelerator and screamed away out of the car park.

"If you want to actually catch that bastard then this is the best way!" she told him firmly.

Robin pulled and rattled on his seatbelt.

"Slow down, I can't get the bloody thing done up!" he cried.

"You need a few lessons from the Gene Hunt school of driving," Alex told him and ignored his complaints.

Robin frowned. He didn't think that was a very good idea somehow. His one attempt at Gene Hunt-style driving had led him straight to 1995. He stared ahead instead, keeping his eyes on Layton. He seemed to be weaving back and forth across the road.

"What the hell is he doing?"

"Adrenaline… withdrawal…" Alex shook her head slightly, "that man is a mess and shouldn't be left in charge of a vehicle."

Robin bit his lip as he stared out of the window. A little sunlight was coming over the horizon now. He glanced at Alex.

"Evan," he said.

Alex gave a sigh. It was true that she had no connection at all in her head or in her heart to Evan or the Prices but his forced confession made her feel sick and horrified deep within her.

"I'm glad that I don't know that man," she whispered.

Robin shook his head slowly.

"I thought he was such a nice guy, Alex. I feel like we were both sucked in, me and Simon. You know, he used to invite us to some of those swanky _doos_ he had with his work, and there were the dinner parties… I thought he was just grateful to Simon for saving your life. Maybe he was just trying to get us under the thumb in case you ever woke up." He cringed, "I even…" he couldn't bring himself to finish that sentence. He now ranked his brief crush on Evan as number three in his all-time top 5 list of _Robin's Greatest Mistakes_, along with crashing his car, the lion taming phase, watching _Crime Traveller_ and thinking that all yogurts were made by a company called _Arshfray_. Well, all the adverts said they were '_from Arshfray'!_ How was he supposed to know it was _Fromage Frais?_ He was only a kid!

He stared ahead of them at the dark road, the sun just starting to dance across the landscape. They were making some small progress catching up to Layton but his path was still unpredictable. He made a sharp turn and Alex followed suit leaving Robin with a sore head where it struck the window.

"Sorry," she mumbled, focusing on her driving.

Robin glanced at her sideways as she drove. He began to feel a little strange. He couldn't explain it. It was like he wanted to take in her features, as though seeing her for the last time. A strange and deep-rooted sadness began to grow inside of him and he let a sigh escape.

"If you've got more comments on my driving, save them until we catch the bastard," Alex told him.

"No, no," Robin said quickly, "I just…" He didn't really know how to explain it. He swallowed as a lump rose in his throat. Something was happening and he couldn't put his finger on what it was. "Nothing."

He turned his eyes back to the road ahead. The distance between them and Layton was growing smaller now. So was the road. Narrower. Robin frowned as it started to look more familiar to him. There was a part of him that felt sure he had been there before. It wasn't for a good few seconds that he realised where they were going and when he did his heart felt like it swelled to twice its size and could explode at any moment.

"Oh shit, _no!"_ he cried.

Alex glanced at him in alarm.

"What? What, Robin?"

"This is where it happened," Robin began to tremble, "Where we crashed. Me and Simon." The realisation made him start to panic a little. If he'd had butterflies in his tummy before then he now had a heard of migrating wildebeests in their place. "Shit, no, not here..."

Alex's eyes darted to him.

"Robin?"

Robin closed his eyes for a few seconds and muttered under his breath as though making a quiet prayer. In honesty, even he wasn't sure what he was saying. Thoughts he was hardly in control of spewed from his mind and chased around him. He couldn't seem to pull together his mind. Nothing made sense, but _everything_ scared him. How they'd ended up on that same road was something that felt like more than coincidence. Was this supposed to be a challenge? A test? To see if he could face it? Because if it was then he was surely failing.

"_Robin?"_

Robin turned to face Alex. He felt himself turning ever paler.

"This is where Simon died," he whispered.

Alex glanced at him and bit her lip sadly. She knew this was the last place Robin wanted to end up on a chase.

"Do you know where the road leads?" she asked.

"The airfield," Robin said quietly.

Alex took a deep breath.

"Right," she whispered, "hold on."

Taking every shred of strength she had, as well as everything she'd learned from years spent in the car with Gene, she put her foot down on the accelerator and gave it all she had. Layton had spent too long lying low, and this time things would be different. He couldn't run forever. His luck was about to run out.

~xXx~

Why wouldn't they leave him alone?

Why wouldn't they stop following him?

Layton's mind was frantic; it was wild and crazed as he tore through the deserted road. He didn't know_ where _he was going, or how long he could_ keep_ going. He only knew that there was an airfield somewhere nearby where there was a pilot with a habit who owed him a favour. That was about as far as the next step of his plan went.

He hadn't intended to shoot those men. But then, he hadn't intended to be interrupted; He should have been laughing at Evan's trembling, blubbering body by now and releasing the guilt he'd carried for so long. Instead he'd topped up his guilt with two more men.

Turning the corner, he came to a stretch of road he'd seen on the news. Someone crashed there, he was sure. There'd been a fallen tree or something. That was as much as he recalled. It didn't do to watch the news too much, he thought. He never knew when he might see his own face staring back.

…What was _that?_

For a moment he thought his addled mind was playing tricks on him. It looked like a fox running across the road but it was bigger. A dog perhaps? Escaped from its lead on its early morning walk? Whatever it was, he was coming closer to it, almost upon it. He might have held little regard for the fate of two men who'd probably come to sink their bullets into him if he hadn't acted first but he didn't want to be responsible for a dead dog so his foot slammed on the brake instinctively.

Nothing.

Nothing happened.

A jolt struck his heart. It was a jolt of fear. A jolt of panic.

He tried again, and once more his foot had no effect as it came down hard on the brake.

There were swear words screaming through his head but he was too shocked to let them fly from his mouth as he swerved to avoid the dog, caught a patch of black ice that lined the road on that cold February morning and spun like a ride at the funfair, around and around like a dangerous waltzer, or a toy spinning furiously on the table turned by a child who loved to watch it turn and spin.

~xXx~

"What is he doing?" Alex muttered as she saw Layton's car begin to move erratically – more so than it had been.

"I don't know," Robin felt a tingle travel down his spine, "But I don't feel –" At that moment, Arthur Layton went into a spin cycle, leaving Robin's thought as a dead end forever, replaced instead by a scream that rang out through the early morning light – _"Holy shit!_ Alex, stop-"

"_Shit!"_ Alex gasped, her foot came down hard on the brake and the car screamed to a sudden halt, herself and Robin thrown forward. That moment played out like a grand movie scene; like the big money shot, the few seconds of motion taking what felt like an eternity. As the moment came to an end, the action started again as a spinning Layton struck their car and played out like a trick-shot in an unfeasibly expensive game of pool; one car spinning in one direction, the other thrown in the opposite way.

A darkness.

|Blackness.

Silence, then a din.

Robin's head was on the dashboard. He knew that much for certain. And it hurt – oh _fuck_, did it hurt. There was blood, he was sure. He could taste it in his mouth. The noise of a car alarm and a car horn locked in a perpetual honk of doom crashed through his already devastating headache. It took several moments for him to make any sense out of the bizarre situation. His intelligence had been knocked clear out of him. He recalled the road and the spinning of the other car, Alex braking and –

"_Alex?"_ he gasped. Oh God, was she OK? He wanted to turn and see but his body hurt so much that he could barely lift his head to look. Slowly he began to raise his head and turned his painful neck to one side, praying from deep within his heart that she was safe but as he turned so the figure beside him slowly raised their head too, and it wasn't Alex.

The swelling of energy in Robin's chest gave it away. It was as though his heart recognised him before his eyes or mind could follow suit. There he was; the one person Robin would never have expected and yet the person he longed to more than anyone in the world. There was blood on his shirt, a cut on his head and his chin was covered with a stubble he wasn't used to seeing but there was no doubt, not the tiniest shred of doubt, who it was.

"_Simon –"_

Robin could only gasp his name as he watched Simon's eyes open wide in disbelief and astonishment, his mouth following suit to speak; to say something – to say _anything_, but then as he blinked the moment faded around him as though time itself shifted and changed, and there in the car beside him was Alex, back again in Simon's place, draped forward lifelessly over the steering wheel. The sound of the horn rang out again and a strong smell began to drift through the car.

"_Shit – petrol,"_ Robin breathed. He stared at Alex, then looked all around him. Where was Simon now? Where the _fucking hell_ was he? He'd been _right there! Right there_ beside him. How could he have gone? How could he have vanished?

As much as his heart ached for an answer and his mind searched desperately for a logical explanation the sight of Alex laying limply across the wheel was his main priority. He cursed again under his breath as he fought to open the door. It didn't seem to budge at first then finally gave way and let him spill out onto the road. He could barely control his legs and they scrambled and lolloped around the back end of the car, up to the driver's side and pulled on the handle. His shoulder hurt so much that he thought he was going to pass out but the door came open relatively easily and he pulled her floppy torso from within.

"Oh God, Alex, _no,"_ he whispered. She looked a deathly pale, her body still and her eyes closed and oblivious to the commotion around her. With some difficulty he held her under the arms and dragged her body further away from the car. He wished he could give her a more dignified rescue, to carry her squarely in his arms from the scene of the accident but he had neither the strength nor the build to succeed. Out of the corner of his eye he thought he glimpsed the back end of a dog dashing away into the scrubland beside the road but he couldn't be certain He didn't know how far to take her…. How far was safe? He wasn't sure. As he pulled her along he passed a dip on the shrubbery where nature had not yet had the chance to cover over the damage it had been dealt some months earlier. With a strong pain that radiated through his chest he knew exactly what that damage had come from. Now the tears began to fall. He couldn't stop them.

"_Oh God,"_ he cried, finally reaching the end of his strength and stopping beside the very spot where Simon's life had ebbed away. Falling to his knees he pulled Alex onto his lap and held her head in his shaking arms. How had it come to this? All because of one man with a secret he couldn't bring himself to face and a lie that ruled his life. He swept her hair from her face. Her eyes were closed, as though she was sleeping. With shaking fingers he reached for a pulse in her neck but he couldn't find one. He knew he wasn't the greatest first aider in the world but he was sure he knew where to look for that. _"Come on,"_ he mumbled, trying desperately to find it. He tried her wrist but her arm was heavy and limp, and there was no pulse to be found. He choked out a loud cry that brought a fresh flood of tears falling down his cheeks. His eyes closed tightly for a moment and he muttered to himself again and again, pleading for someone or something to take this terrible moment away from him but no miracles were there to be found. There was only him and Alex's lifeless body, and a place that held such a dark, terrible meaning for him.

If his own heart had stopped, he thought, that might have been the best thing for him.


	73. Chapter 36, 1995: Calando

_**A/N: The second of 2 chapters tonight –x-**_

**Chapter Thirty Six: 1995**

Somehow Simon pushed his vertigo out of his mind as he moved down the fire escape as fast as he possibly could. His hatred for Keats had blocked out everything that threatened to stall him. As he reached the car park he faced a moment of panic – how the hell was he going to chase Keats in his bright red penis extension on foot? He almost did a double take as he found his own car sitting there.

"_Wait…"_ he frowned. Did he have a super intelligent car? This wasn't Knight Rider. He closed his eyes for a moment as he realised Kim must have used his car to drive to Fenchurch West and rescue Gene from the cuffs. He hadn't even taken it to work that morning, since the honour of latte run was all his. As he found the car unlocked and the keys in the ignition he was split between being angry about her leaving it there for the taking and relieved that he wouldn't have to pretend he knew how to hotwire a car. He quickly jumped in and started the engine but a split second before he pulled away someone jumped into the passenger seat beside him. He looked at her with his mouth open in shock.

"Alex?" he cried, "what the hell are you doing here?"

"I'm coming with you," Alex said simply.

"No you're not," said Simon, "go with Gene!"

"I am _not_ staying anywhere with someone who thinks I am a piece of crockery," Alex told him sternly, "and besides, my knee has some target practice planned with Jim's balls at the heart of it.

Simon hesitated for just a second. He didn't want to take her with him but it would take longer to get rid of her than just to drive and he was already at risk of losing Keats so reluctantly he said,

"Fine, but hold on," then put his foot down and began a serious attempt at some Gene Hunt-style driving.

Alex's head snapped back as the speed of the car took her breath away.

"What kind of driving is _that?"_ she cried.

"The kind of driving that I'm going to have to do if you want to give him that promised kneeing!" cried Simon, "and one more thing," he turned onto the road and began to speed up, "if you're coming with me you can leave out all the psychology and let me concentrate on driving. And no air quotes."

Alex pulled a face.

"Now I know why Jim called you Mini-Hunt," she mumbled.

Simon ignored her and turned a corner.

"Aha," he spotted Keats's car in the distance and focused clearly on the path ahead.

Alex looked from the car ahead to Simon.

"You mentioned Jim's car being some kind of 'penis extension'," she began, breaking the _no air quote_ rule.

Simon barely listened.

"Hmm?"

Alex raised an eyebrow.

"But I notice you _also_ have a red car."

Simon scowled. He glanced at her.

"I told you not to get into the psychology, it disturbs my driving," he said.

"And your car if reasonably sporty too," she continued.

"Look, I didn't _choose_ it!" Simon protested, recalling its sudden appearance outside the flat on the night he took Susannah's soul, "It came with the…" he hesitated, "with the promotion."

"And the personalised number plate," Alex continued, "S – seven – O – U – L. Well, obviously the letters seem to spell out the word '_Soul'_."

Simon took a deep breath. He was starting to understand why Gene found Alex so annoying in the early days.

"Now I know who I'll call if I ever get stuck during a game of Scrabble," he mumbled.

"Now, that could represent my struggle with good versus evil," she continued.

"I thought we established this wasn't all in your head now," Simon said crossly.

"Now, the _seven_…" Alex continued, "the seven may represent –"

"- The number of times I have to tell you to shut up before you stop talking?" Simon cried. He watched her open her mouth to reply. _"Shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up, shut UP!"_ He paused and glanced at her as she sat in silence, then he let out his breath slowly. "Ahh – I was right!" he said in relief.

Alex sat back and pouted. She watched the road ahead of them as they slowly edged closer to Keats, then eventually glanced at Simon.

"I_ will_ get home, you know," she said quietly.

Simon looked at her for a moment.

"If you're one of the lucky ones."

"I have a daughter."

"I know."

Alex hesitated. She'd never really spoken to this… _Simon,_ was it? He seemed to have some kind of a sadness about him.

"I have to get back to her," she said firmly, "I know I can make it. I know I'm still alive."

"Well, we're not all as lucky as you are," Simon said bluntly.

Alex hesitated.

"You know this isn't real," she said, "don't you?"

Simon's eyes turned to her for a second.

"For some of us this is as real as it gets," he said quietly.

Alex stared at him.

"You came from there too," she said. It was more of an observation than a question. She hesitated. "Did you leave someone behind?" Simon didn't reply. "A wife? Girlfriend?"

Simon took a deep breath.

"Boyfriend," he said. He flinched slightly, "fiancé. Well, for about half an hour, and then he…" he shook his head slowly. "He went home."

Alex looked at him, wide eyes.

"So you _can_ make it back?" she whispered.

"If you're lucky," said Simon, not sure how lucky Robin counted himself when he woke up to find himself alone in the world.

Alex stared ahead again. She thought about Keats, his anger and his evil. How had she fallen for that? She knew it was not all of her doing, but she'd wanted some action long before he took what he desired of her.

"How did I fall for it?" she whispered.

Simon knew who she was talking about. There was no question about that.

"He has a way about him," he said quietly, "you weren't the first. We can only hope you were the last."

Alex bit her lip.

"How many others?" she asked quietly.

Simon breathed deeply. He knew he'd come close to being a part of Jimbo's lust statistics. The hospital roof was a recurring nightmare for him.

"I don't know," he said quietly, "not for sure. Kim…" he let out his breath, "he got her badly." He watched Keats turn a corner and followed him.

Alex looked at Simon again.

"Her," she began quietly, "the other me. The one who lives here."

Simon looked over for a moment with interest. She'd finally acknowledged it.

"Yes?"

She hesitated.

"What will happen to her when she comes back?" she asked, "I mean, _if_ she gets back."

Simon looked at the road ahead. He stared in silence for some time as he continued to drive. Then he took a deep breath.

"She will survive," he said quietly, "because that's what she does. She's a strong woman. She will come back, she will adjust and she will survive." He glanced at her, "and hopefully she won't have too high a price to pay for your mistakes."

Alex looked down. She had made a fair few of those.

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

Simon felt a little sorry for her. There was a growing look of guilt on her face.

"You were charmed by a trickster with an evil soul," he said quietly, "like I said, you're not the only one. And you – _she_ – almost fell for it once before."

"Whereas I jumped straight in with both feet," Alex said quietly. She took a deep breath. She recalled moments that struck her as strange or nasty but she'd buried those feelings. Over the last three days all he'd put inside her were lettuce leaves, nitrous oxide and _little Jimbo_. He'd left her feeling self-conscious, starving and humiliated. She couldn't believe she had been under his spell for so long.

Simon's expression began to change as he followed Keats around another turning. He began to feel a sense of panic clouding his senses.

"Oh shit," he whispered.

Alex looked at him in alarm as he swallowed hard.

"What? What's the matter?" she asked.

Simon glanced at her.

"It's, uh," he shook his head slowly, "I don't like where he'd heading, that's all," he whispered.

"Why?" frowned Alex.

"It's just not a road I want to go down," Simon snapped.

Alex looked around. It seemed like a fairly nice road.

"What's the matter with it?" she asked.

Simon could feel perspiration appear in his brow.

"Well, how would you like to go for dinner and dancing with Layton?" he asked.

Alex hesitated.

"This is where something happened to you," she whispered, "isn't it?" she swallowed, "It's where you died." She watched him swallow hard and saw his expression falling. "Oh… oh no, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry."

Simon's heart grew heavy in his chest. The place he didn't want to go, chasing a man he hated. This wasn't exactly the high point of his year so far.

~xXx~

_Just keep going._

That's all he had to do. To keep going.

He'd outrun them eventually.

Simon might have fancied himself as a bit of a Gene wannabe but he didn't have the same driving ability, Keats was fairly certain of that.

So he kept on driving. Or, kept on running, depending on which way he looked at it.

Already he could feel that filing cabinet in his head closing and the key turning in the lock. Locking away this chapter. Locking away the 'new' Alex and their all too brief time together. Locking up the bullet that buried into Kim's flesh. Locking away all those words that Simon had dared to say. He was good at blocking them out. Shutting them out of his mind. This was just another time, it wasn't the first and it wouldn't be the last.

With his hand skipping from the wheel for just a moment he flicked on the radio and – _oh! Bliss!_ He almost climaxed at the sound that struck his grateful ears! The opening bars of _Last Christmas_ washed over him, sweeping up his pain and closeting it at the back of his mind.

This was it. This was the life. He even forgot about the car hot on his trail as he drove along the empty back road, thoughts of Andrew Ridgeley filling his mind. He was almost certain that Mr Ridgeley didn't have that restraining order in place any more.

_# …Last Christmas, I gave you my heart_

_But the very next day,_

_You gave it away_

_This year, to save me from tears_

_I'll give it to someone special…#_

_Hang on a minute._

He frowned.

Had he never listened to the lyrics before? He certainly wasn't liking them today. Giving away hearts was not something he was in the mood for hearing about just then.

_#...Once bitten and twice shy_

_I keep my distance but you still catch my eye_

_Tell me baby do you recognise me?_

_Well it's been a year, it doesn't surprise me_

_Happy Christmas! I wrapped it up and sent it_

_With a note saying "I Love You" I meant it_

_Now I know what a fool I've been_

_But if you kissed me now I know you'd fool me again…#_

"_No, no, no, no…"_ he muttered. This was all a load of bollocks. Loving people and falling for them all over again, and, _and…_

This was completely ruining his adoration of Mr Ridgeley.

_#...Last Christmas, I gave you my heart_

_But the very next day, _

_You gave it away_

_This year, to save me from tears_

_I'll give it to someone special…#_

"No, no, absolutely fucking _not,"_ he barked, "I will _not_ give anyone my bloody heart for Christmas! I will never give _anyone_ my heart for anything, _ever,_ full stop!"

_#...A crowded room, friends with tired eyes_

_I'm hiding from you and your soul of ice_

_My God I thought you were someone to rely on_

_Me? I guess I was a shoulder to cry on_

_A face on a lover with a fire in his heart_

_A man undercover but you tore me apart…#_

Oh God.

Something happened to Keats that he had never experienced before.

_Wham!_ made him feel a terrible sense of guilt, anger and utter devastation.

"_No!"_ he cried. He hated this, hated every damn moment of it. Something was happening to him that only happened to other people. To _human_ souls. Lyrics were speaking to him. They were expressing what he held deep inside of him and he didn't like it, not one fucking bit - and even less because it was _Andrew fucking Ridgeley_ that was making him open up his heart!

_Oh God, Alex –_

What had he done to Alex? _To another _Alex? How many Alex's was he going to hurt? How many was he going to use and abuse? How many Alexes was he going to want and repel with his behaviour? How many Alex's were going to end up hating him for what he was inside?

_#...A face on a lover with a fire in his heart_

_A man undercover but you tore me apart_

_Next year_

_I'll give it to someone, I'll give it to someone special_

_special_

_someone_

_someone_

_I'll give it to someone, I'll give it to someone special_

_who'll give me something in return_

_I'll give it to someone_

_hold my heart and watch it burn…#_

At that moment something flashed across the road like fire. In his crazed state it took him a moment to realise it was just an animal and he slammed his foot down hard on the brake but nothing happened.

"_Shit!"_

Down his foot went, again and again, trying to halt the car but something was wrong. He heard screaming – it was coming from himself and he didn't even know. Shocked and dazed he spun the wheel around and careered into the side of the road, hitting a tree with such force that a cold, dark silence soon overcame him as his body succumbed to the trauma.

~xXx~

"_What the –"_ Simon's words trailed away as the car he'd been chasing suddenly spun out of control, "_Holy shit!"_

His foot hit the brake as Keats's car barrelled into a tree, dislodging it and sending it over the already wrecked vehicle. The cars struck each other before either could come to a complete halt and Simon's spun and turned while he and Alex inside it were tossed into the air like confetti.

There was darkness and nothingness.

Silence, then noise.

Simon heard the sound of a car alarm accompanied by a terrible, constant din from a horn that wouldn't shut its stupid face. His neck hurt so much he wondered if his head was still attached or if it had come lose somewhere in the car.

Slowly he opened his eyes. His head was resting on the steering wheel and there were cuts on his face, he was pretty certain of that. Slowly he rose, as though his body was so fragile it could fall apart at any moment, then in an instant he remembered Alex.

"Oh God, Alex, are –"

He turned his head to the side. Then his heart almost exploded inside of him. His eyes opened so wide that they stung from exposure to the cold, smoky air and his breath was stolen from his body by a moment of sheer, unexplainable magic.

_Robin._

There he was; those deep eyes he'd looked into so many times, so many days, so many nights. The dark hair still flopping over one eye, just as always. He seemed to be wearing one of Simon's old shirts which bewildered him for a moment but that detail was hardly important.

He saw Robin's mouth open as whispered something – he thought it was his name but over the cacophony of car sounds it was impossible to tell. There was a sadness in his eyes that made Simon year to reach out and hold him, to tell him everything was going to be alright. He felt tears spring into his eyes and a warmth swelling inside his chest as he opened his mouth to speak, to tell him how much he missed him, how much he loved him, but in the blink of an eye he was gone.

Simon's heart almost stopped beating. For just a second he'd been there. Been so close. He could have reached out and touched him – but now he was gone.

"_Again,"_ whispered Simon, choking on the tears he was trying to hold back.

In that moment he realised that there was something he'd been forgetting and overlooking.

"_Shit! Alex!"_

Where Robin had been sitting in the passenger seat just a moment before, Alex now lay with her head against the dashboard, blood trickling from her forehead and her nose. He felt a rising sense of panic.

"_Oh god… Oh no..."_

He jammed his shoulder against the door of the car time and again until it opened, then he raced around to the passenger door and pulled it open before grasping Alex under her arms and pulling her free. He tried to scoop her up, his slightly scrawny frame making his task more difficult but finally held her firmly enough to lumber away from the car as the smell of petrol made him fear the worst.

His arms and his back began to ache until finally he could carry herno longer. He came to a halt by the side of the road, beside a tree that would one day grow to a far greater height before taking a plunge onto the road and waiting for someone to head through its path.

"Come on, Alex," Simon hissed. He felt the side of her neck but there was no pulse. "Come _on!" _

Oh god, where was Susannah and her first aid kit now?

In the bloody pub – what bloody use was that?

Simon looked around helplessly, terrified, unsure what to do or how to get out of the terrible, agonising mess they were in.

"Come on, Alex," he cried. He placed his hand beneath her noise and in front of her mouth but couldn't feel her breathing., he pressed a palm to her chest but there was no sign of a beating heart. _"Fuck!" _he screamed.

What the hell was he supposed to do? Was he supposed to try resuscitating her? He knew you had to blow into her mouth and pump her chest, but how many times? And was he supposed to hold her nose? Or was he thinking of diving?

"_Fuck! Why did I never take a fucking first aid course?"_

And then, there it was. A tingle. A terrible tingle that he'd dreaded feeling again ever since that day. That dark day he'd discovered his purpose in this world. The day outside the Falcon building when he's let Susannah's soul escape the evil intentions of Keats.

"No!" he cried, "I'm not doing this! I'm not taking Alex!"

He felt tears running down his face and couldn't stop them. His hands were shaking as he held her head and that sensation was starting to spread through his arms, deep into his chest where it gathered around his heart with a warmth; a strong pulsating energy that radiated through them both.

He screamed out as he felt her lifting from her body, rising up and out, moving on, moving over. He yelled her name, he begged her to hold on but her body was limp and heavy and her life had departed from the flesh.

His screams grew louder, the pain and torment burning him inside. Why didn't he try harder to stop her? Why didn't he just turn her out of the car back at Fenchurch West? Why didn't he make her put on her fucking seatbelt?

All their work and all their desperate struggles to help her home, to find a way to bring her to their side and to work together, to bring back the Alex who made her home in 1995 was over, and he'd ended it in a motion that would kill him inside forever.

He wanted to scream, to run, to hide. More than that he wanted to die. An eternity of _this?_ It was killing him already. He wished, somehow, that something could finish the job.

Then, as he sat with her in his arms, came the distant sound of a car. He closed his eyes and wept in silence. The day had reached the grimmest end and there was no turning this around. It was over. Everything was over.

X

And that was how he found Simon as he pulled up beside him. He stepped out of the car and walked up to his side.

As Simon's eyes travelled up from his boots right up to his face; his set, firm jaw and determination in his eyes, he could feel something was about to happen.

And he was right.


	74. Chapter 37, 2011 & 1995: Codetta

_**A/N: So, two chapters today and from there on probably single doses until the end. Thank you for staying on this journey x**_

**Chapter Thirty Seven:**

**1995/2011**

**Back and Forth**

**~xXx~**

**1995**

"Gene?" Simon stared up, completely shocked to see him. How had he managed to get there so fast? How had he known he was there at all? It made no sense, none at all. Gene was many things but he wasn't omnipotent.

"Give her to me, son," he said grimly.

Simon looked back down at the lifeless Alex in his arms. The knowledge of what he'd done came crashing down upon him again like a building collapsing onto his chest. He looked at Gene, his eyes glistening with tears as he whispered,

"I'm sorry, Gene – I couldn't stop it – she just –"

Gene shook his head.

"Give her to me," he said again."

Simon stared at him.

"She's gone," he whispered.

Gene was tired of asking and waiting. He bent down and scooped her from his arms with some difficulty, her whole body a dead weight, then began to march away.

"No, she's coming back," he mumbled.

Simon's mouth dropped open and he stared on in bewilderment. He couldn't understand what on earth Gene thought he was –

"_Hey!"_ he cried, scrambling to his feet. He realised that wherever Gene was going he seemed to be leaving Simon out of it and he didn't fancy trying to follow on foot. He ran after him until he realised quite how much pain he was in and reduced his pace to a stagger instead_. "Gene!"_

Gene barely glanced around.

"You were right," he barked out, "about Kim," he stopped and turned, "but this one's my call."

"Kim?" Simon could hardly keep his thoughts straight. He pressed his hand to his forehead and wrinkled his brow, "Is she alive? _Gene?"_ he watched on as Gene continued to walk until he realised he couldn't follow. Whatever Gene had to do he had to do alone. All he could do was to watch; to stare and to see, and try to survive the agonising wait.

**~xXx~**

**2011**

As Alex lay in his arms, Robin felt a sensation beginning to fill them. It started from the tips of his fingers and travelled through his hands, up to his elbows and beyond to his shoulders before it spread through his body and settled in a pulsing mass of energy around his heart. The feeling scared him, it terrified and confused him, it came from nowhere and consumed him completely.

Something happened. It was like an instinct. It was something within him that he didn't even know existed. Every part of his mind and every beat of his heart focused on Alex in his grasp. His love and care surrounded her, wrapped her up in warmth and safety and coaxed her home.

His eyes closed and his head fell as he felt her lifting; her energy, her soul, her spirit – _her- _rising from her body, escaping the confines of a body that wasn't hers to keep. He wanted to cry or to scream, but he couldn't do either. He couldn't move, he couldn't speak, he couldn't _think_. All he could do was to focus on that energy rising from the woman he'd felt so close to over the past few days and to guide her; to send her on her way.

A whisper on the air; a warmth that enveloped his heart, a strong sensation of destiny being fulfilled and suddenly it was over. Gone. Passed.

As though coming out of a trance Robin found himself shocked and shaking. He stared down at Alex and gave a gasp. He felt almost as though he'd been someone else, or some_where_ else, and hadn't been in full control.

"_Oh my god,"_ he whispered. What had he done? He recalled the sensations, the moments – had he taken her life away? Oh god, what if he had? Had he taken her life? How was that even possible? He couldn't make any sense of the moment that had passed. But as the sound of roaring flames came from a distance, the petrol finally igniting and taking Robin's car in a sea of flame, something unexpected happened.

From the head lying so still against his lap, there was a breath.

One sudden, choking breath

**~xXx~**

**1995**

Gene could feel it. He could feel it coming. It was like the first time; that first night he'd leaned over a fallen copper and felt the tingling in his fingers. But this was different – it felt different, strange and unnatural.

How was this possible? It had never happened before. _Ever._ And Gene had been there a long time.

"Come on Bolly," he mumbled, "Got any ETA for me? Only I'm not sure how this is supposed to happ-"

He froze as the strangest sensation started in his chest. It was like pure heat; _fire. _A bit like Shoebury's key-related bout of indigestion, he thought, except this was coming from his heart. It slowly radiated outwards, through his chest, spreading to his shoulders then down his arms and finally to his hands where it settled at his fingers; twitched and tingled, almost as though he'd been laying on his arm and the blood finally running back into his digits.

He stopped. He stopped walking and started feeling. He dropped his head over her still and lifeless body in his arms, feeling the greatest respect that he ever had for his world and his role within it. He had never felt it so strongly before. It reminded him what a privileged position he was in, and how grateful he was for it.

It also reminded him that, no matter what Keats's notes might have said, he could never be neutral.

To Gene, he was doing it right, even if that meant having to battle the evil that came alongside it.

The sensation was growing now. It was stronger than he'd ever experienced when a soul travelled outwards. Far more intense. Normally by now he would be feeling the sensation of the soul leaving the body he cradled, to feel it rising and flowing ever upwards but there was a very different sensation surrounding him now.

Downwards, inwards, the energy flowed from around him, through him, right into her heart. He closed his eyes as his head started to swim. It truly was like the first time all over again, but flipped on its side. He'd never felt this before. Had _anyone?_

There was, he realised, a first time for everything.

Just as the energy and the sensation reached their peak and he didn't know if he could take any more there was a twitch from the woman in his arms, then a splutter, then one cough – one single, choking cough that brought with it the momentary fluttering of her eyelids and one tiny, millisecond glimpse in to her beautiful eyes.

One beautiful, sparkling soul twinkled inside them.

"_Bolly,"_ he dropped his head again and watched her chest rise and fall as she breathed, but her eyes were closed now and her body still heavy and limp. The sensation faded to a dull fluttering of his heart and he knew it was done. Now all they could do was to hope, to wait and to pray that her body was as strong as her soul.

He took one deep breath and, while no one could see, before he turned around he laid one gentle, soft kiss upon her forehead. Then he gathered his strength, turned around and began to pace back to Simon who was still standing in complete and total confusion beside the car. He wasn't in the mood for answering the questions he knew were coming. Concentrate on Alex and getting her to hospital first. Then Shoebury could flap his lips as much as he liked.

**~xXx~**

**2011**

"_Alex?"_

He gasped in utter shock and watched her chest as it rose and fell. There was life – _life!_ Life in her body. _Breath,_ and a heartbeat. But her eyes stayed closed and her mind inactive.

There was life, but no soul.

With a sudden sense of realisation, Robin closed his eyes and gave a gasp that contained more emotion than a thousand words could portray. He opened his eyes and looked down at her face. Her eyes were closed but across her lips was a smile. While her body was still breathing, her soul had made its decision, at least for now.

The sound of a car from the distance barely registered as Robin sat in a daze, holding her gently and weeping for all he'd seen and all he'd felt. A week of insanity had swept in and changed his life, and he didn't know how anything could be the same again. He peered at her face; her beautiful, peaceful features that looked as happy and at ease as he'd seen them from the moment she opened her eyes on New Years' Day, and certainly since she arrived on his doorstep and collapsed through his doorway.

The car came closer now, pulled up nearby and allowed its inhabitants to give a tirade of dramatic commentary on the accident they'd found.

_Of course, _he breathed as he held her and his eyes closed involuntarily, _how beautifully the circle came to a close._ Things ending as they started. Just a few days earlier he'd caught her in his arms and looked down at her terrified face for the first time. The beauty of fate and life was almost overwhelming.

"_Oh my god…. Are you alright?"_

The voice of a stranger and the footsteps that pounded his way barely registered.

"_Hey, call nine nine nine! I'll check the other car."_

"_Are you OK?"_

"_What happened?"_

"_My friend's calling nine nine nine, you'll be OK soon…"_

But the words didn't sink in, not for a second. Robin barely heard. His body drained of energy, his strength depleted and his mind and heart screaming with overwhelming emotion he felt his eyes rolling back into their sockets and his wholde torso collapsed to the ground.

~x~

"_Male, late twenties to early thirties, was conscious when the call was made but collapsed shortly afterwards. Passer by attempted heart massage at the scene…"_

"_Can you get me those fluids please?"_

"_I'm not liking the look of these vital signs."_

"_OK, we're losing him… we're losing him….."_

"_Charging…"_

"_And clear –"_

Pow!

"_Nothing."_

"_OK, let's try again, charging…."_

"_And clear –"_

Pow!

Beep –

"_That's it!"_

"_No, wait… sats are dropping…"_

"_OK, we're almost there. ETA one minute."_

"_We're losing him again –"_

"_Come on, we're almost there…"_

"_Charging…"_

"_And, clear ="_

**Pow.**

**~xXx~**

**1995**

"_Gene!"_

Gene didn't speak at first. He concentrated on the gentle loading of a fragile Alex into the back of his car, where Kim's blood still lay fresh. As he closed the door and paced around to the driver's seat he gave Simon a half-second glance.

"Well? You getting in or not, Shoebury?"

Simon's mouth was still open. He glanced at Gene, then at Alex in the back and finally scrambled to the passenger side. He stared at Gene as he sat down and started the engine.

"But, Gene," he stammered, "I don't understand – she was…"

Gene glanced back at Alex, then began to turn the car around.

"A long time ago, I promise her," he began, "that I'd always be there when she needed me. Not letting that promise go today."

"B-but she'd _gone!"_ Simon cried.

"She never could say no to me," Gene told him. He raised an eyebrow, "you've either got it, or you haven't."

Simon stared at him, aghast. He wasn't sure if he would ever know what happened between Gene and Alex in those few moments, nor what had led him there in the first place, but he was also learning it was sometimes better not to know. He cringed a little as he glanced at the half-a-handcuff still attacked to the wheel with a bit of the chain dangling down from it. He suspected the other half was still around Gene's wrist. He further suspected that Gene would be forcing them both down Simon's throat to reunite them with the key if he didn't find some way to make it up to him and do some pretty fast talking.

He sat in silence for a few moments as Gene continued driving, then he felt a strange pain inside his chest. He rubbed it for a few seconds, fearing bruised ribs from the crash but it seems to be coming from somewhere deeper within.

He flinched a little and took in a sharp breath.

"Not more indigestion?" Gene frowned, "if yer going to start belching again at least turn the other way and do yer bit for the environment, making the world's first wind-powered Fiat."

Simon rolled his eyes.

"No, Gene," he said, "I feel kind of –"

The pain increased to a point where he couldn't take it. He clutched his chest and threw his head back with a scream as his whole body jolted into the air. Gene did a double take and almost lost control of the car.

"Jesus, Shoebury!" he cried, "_Now_ what?"

Simon collapsed back in the seat but a moment later a second enormous jolt thrust him back into the air. Gene's eyes were wide now and he started to panic.

"Simon, you're having a meltdown!" he warned, "this is just what I was talking about! If it's not on the floor in the basement it's giving me car an extra sunroof!" but his words masked a fear that was growing. A third jolt sent Simon's body jumping and trembling again and Gene could hardly keep control of the car. "Not you as well, I'm not carrying both of you in the bloody hospital! Stop it Shoeb-" he shook his head briefly, "_fuck it."_ With that, he put his foot down even harder on the accelerator for the fastest hospital trip in history. "If you'd had my driving skills in the first place none of this would have happened," Gene mumbled as he drove on.

X

There was a blackness.

The first jolt had knocked Simon unconscious and somewhere in that darkness there was a voice. He could hear it but the words were faint and muffled.

There was a cry of

"_Charging…"_

Followed by

"_And clear –"_

Then there was a hand reaching out for him, begging him to pull them closer.

The words were clearer but he could only hear them in his mind.

_Help me._

_Hold me._

He tried so hard, tried with all his might to reach forward and grasp the hand but just as his fingers brushed it there was one final jolt and the hand began to slip away into the distance. He felt an overwhelming crush of sadness that he couldn't quite explain before he found himself slowly opening his eyes with Gene looming over him, defibrillator in his hands. Immediately he scrambled up in the hospital bed he'd awoken in and screamed,

"_Gene! What the bloody hell are you doing?"_

"I always wanted to have a go with one of these," said Gene.

Simon felt fear and panic rushing through him.

"Well _don't!"_ he cried. He clutched his chest. There was no pain there now, except for some genuine bruises he'd picked up in the accident. "What happened? Where am I?" he noticed to his horror that he'd been placed in a hospital gown. _Oh,_ there was little in life he hated more than hospital gowns. Possibly only three things – Jim Keats, Andrew Ridgeley and doing the morning latte run.

"They said you probably had a panic attack," Gene told him.

"Then what's the defibrillator for?" cried Simon.

Gene held it up with a shrug.

"I told you, I always wanted to have a go."

Simon shook his head slowly and pulled his knees up to his chest.

"You worry me," he said, "you're worse than Susannah with her tourniquets. And anyway, that was not a panic attack." He felt a cold sense of panic settle on his shoulders as he asked, "Alex -?"

Gene looked at him seriously.

"She's still out cold," he said grimly.

Simon looked at him with so many questions flashing through his eyes.

"Gene, what did you do? Out there?"

Gene shook his head slowly.

"Flipped me own world upside down," he mumbled.

Simon bit his lip. He decided it was best to leave it there.

"Is she going to be OK?" he asked.

Gene looked away.

"Out cold. They're running tests," he said.

Simon nodded very slowly. Then his eyes widened slightly.

"And Kim?"

"She's on the table as we speak," Gene told him, "they got her heart started again. They'll tell us when the bullet's out. Just have to hope."

Simon almost didn't dare ask.

"And what of the devil?"

Gene sighed.

"Taking a deep sleep in ICU," he said, "doing tests on 'im too." He paused. "Hope they're painful ones."

Simon took a deep breath. His mind travelled back to his strange 'turn'. He couldn't shake the sight of the hand reaching out to him, or the strange jolts he'd received. It made little sense, but like so much in this world he wasn't sure he would ever find out. The voice – _oh,_ it had sounded for all the world like Robin. He closed his eyes as he thought about it. The idea that Robin could have somehow been reaching out to him and he'd failed to grasp that hand killed him inside.

Without thinking he lowered his legs from the bed and stood up, then bent over to pick up his shoes.

"Bloody hell, Keats was right; you _do _have a hairy arse!"

Immediate Simon found out how one of the worst days of his life could actually become worse. He stood up straight, pulled his gown around him and turned the colour of a tomato.

"Oh for fuck's sake!" he cried. He looked at Gene. "Well don't you think you should leave me to get dressed in peace?"

Gene looked away but didn't start to move. In honesty, he didn't want to be that person again. _That man,_ sat on his own in the corridor, waiting for news. He'd been that man all too recently, when Keats's bullet took his Bolly away. Now he had to wait and see whether she was going to open those eyes and come back for good.

He'd done his part. Now it was up to Alex.

**~xXx~**

**1995**

Oh, it hurt. _Everything_ hurt. There wasn't an inch of Robin that wasn't in pain. He coughed and choked a little as his chest felt heavy and tight. He could feel soft sheets around him. The sound of machines and distant voices filtered through to his mind. He recalled the car crash, pulling Alex from the wreck and releasing her soul. He remembered the deep heaviness through his body and snippets from the ambulance. _Losing him._

They were…

He froze. _Losing_ him?

Was this it? Had he passed? Oh god, was he _there_?

"_Simon?"_ his voice was faint and dry and his eyes opened quickly. The bright hospital light made it hard for him to adjust and focus but there was someone sitting beside his bed. He turned a little and tried to see who it was.

"Robin, it's me."

The voice was soft and female. Instantly his heart sank. That wasn't the voice he wanted to hear. He blinked a few times and finally his eyes adjusted enough for the owner of the voice to come into clearer focus.

"Kelly?" he coughed again, "what's happening? What – why am I here?"

He saw her shaking her head a little.

"Robin, your heart kept stopping," she seemed anxious and overwrought, "they don't know why. They had to work really hard to keep you here."

Involuntarily Robin closed his eyes and gave the deepest groan.

"_No!"_ he cried, "do not resuscitate!_ Do not resuscitate!"_

"What?"

Robin breathed deeply. He felt like crying; wanted to sob his eyes out. Why? Why hadn't they let him go? It sounded like he'd fought so hard to leave – why did they make him _stay?_

"Nothing," he whispered. He tried to hold in his emotions. It wasn't as though he could explain it to her. In his moment of anguish he recalled that momentary glimpse of Simon beside him. He'd felt as close to him right then as he ever had.

Suddenly the welfare of another came to mind.

"Alex," he cried, "Kelly, what happened? Is she –"

"She's unconscious but stable," Kelly told him, "she suffered head trauma in the accident."

Robin looked at her.

"She's in a coma?"

"They're running some tests."

Robin laid right back and closed his eyes.

"_Shit,"_ he breathed. He felt tears in his eyes, Such strange emotions he'd been feeling in her presence those last few days. He was no closer to understanding why. The last few days he'd felt almost like he wasn't himself. The lines were so blurred. It felt like worlds had been merging into one. He'd been through so much in the space of so little time that he couldn't even work out who he was, let alone _where_ he was. From the moment Alex fell through his doorway to the moment he felt her go free, he'd been through a world of experience. He wasn't sure how he would ever be able to adjust to a normal life again.

"They say they'll have more news by tonight," Kelly told him.

Robin bit his lip and his eyes turned back to her very slowly.

"And Kim…?" his fear started to rise again, "Oh god, _Kim…_ she –"

"She's in surgery," Kelly said quickly. She seemed a little strange, stiffening and drawing back a little. The strangest hint of a blush across her cheeks made Robin wonder what had happened, "they'll tell us when it's over."

"But she's alive?" Robin asked quietly.

Kelly nodded.

"Yes," she whispered.

Robin closed his eyes. His breath was fast and shallow. He knew this doing him no good. It was just making the room spin. He tried to slow it down and to calm himself a little. Everything was in such a mess, such a stinking great mess. He glanced at Kelly.

"I suppose there are _people_ outside waiting to talk to me?" he asked.

Kelly shook her head slowly.

"No. There will be questions, of course but… It's not like you were ever 'wanted', Robin," she sighed, "you were a missing person. You're not a criminal." She paused, "unlike _someone."_

Robin's eyes opened wide.

"Layton," he cried, "What happened to him?"

"They found him unconscious in his car," Kelly told him, "No news on his condition yet, but," she shook her head slowly, "that wasn't who I meant."

Robin frowned.

"Well _who_ then?"

Kelly bit her lip.

"Our esteemed colleagues had a few questions for Evan White," she said.

Robin's eyes bolted.

"_Evan?"_

"When the brakes are cut on your car and you've left it unlocked in plain sight for someone to take there's going to be questions." She said quietly.

Robin felt his eyes close again He couldn't stop them. He felt like the world had gone insane.

"_Alex,"_ he said, "I need to see her."

"You need to stay where you are," Kelly told him firmly.

Robin pulled the drip from his hand, cursing at the pain as the cannula slipped from his vein and removed a number of sensors which set off alarms left, right and centre. Robin didn't care. He ignored the pleas of doctors and nurses as they flocked around the room, threatening him with defibrillators, and stood his ground. Despite myriad cuts, bruises and other assorted injuries, lying in that bed would only serve to torture him.

Still in his undignified surgical gown he trailed through the corridors. He had a feeling. He just knew.

He came to a halt at the door.

"_They've put her back in her old room," _he sighed.

It was almost like pressing the reset button, or going back to the restore point of New Year's Eve 2010. Alex, back in a coma, back in her old room – just one fundamental difference – this time Robin didn't have a supply of pills to knock back when he went home.

Making sure his gown was held firmly around him so as not to expose the general population to his backside he slipped into the room and felt like his heart was going to stop all over again. It was like going back in time – not fifteen years, but a few weeks. He closed his eyes. How could one life change so much in so little time?

His walk to the chair beside her bed was slow, his footsteps light and his body tired. As he sat beside her and stared upon her peaceful features he saw that smile again. A part of him questioned that inside, but a part of him understood it. He reached for her hand and gently lifted it to lay his forehead against it. The events and emotions that had passed between them would tie him, Alex, Kim and even Kelly together forever in a way they could never express.

He sat silently, save for his tears. That was all he had left in him now. It would take him forever and a day to understand what had happened in the last week. Perhaps he never would. But he was forever grateful that he'd been in the right place at the right time, when Alex needed him.

Just as Simon had been, all those months ago.

Suddenly he felt as though he understood. He knew why, even though it was the hardest thing he'd ever been through, he was separated from Simon. He _had _to be there; he had to help her. She had no one when she awoke. Without Robin, where would she have gone? To the funny farm on Evan's request, most likely.

The right place, at the right time.

"Destiny" he whispered.


	75. Chapter 38, Missing Time: Ritornello

_**A/N: The second of tonight's two chapters**_

**Chapter Thirty Eight**

**~ The Missing Time ~**

**2011, One Hour Earlier**

Evan sat in his car staring at the phone. It was the second time it had rung. The first time he had ignored it completely. He'd been sitting in his car ever since, just staring at the silent hospital car park. His anguish was reaching a level he didn't think possible when the phone rang for the second time. He stared at it but already knew who it was going to be. He wept and cursed as his suspicions were confirmed, then finally snatched it up in anger.

"_What?"_ he cried breathlessly.

"_Oh, decided to talk to me this time,_ have you?" Layton's voice sounded crazed and manic.

"Only to tell you to stop calling me!" Evan cried.

_"Well I'd think carefully about that because you know what happened last time,"_ Layton's tone developed a deep sneer, _"And guess what?"_ As soon as he'd said those words, he knew. Evan knew. It was that terrible sinking feeling deep inside.

"What?" he breathed.

_"Got your lovely goddaughter here in front of me. Again." _

Evan swallowed. Was there any way to know if this was true? Was he playing on Evan's fear after the first time that he'd been on the wrong end of his blackmail demands?

"How do I know you really have her there?" he whispered, "besides, she's in hiding with that loopy dog handler."

_"Surely you remember what happened last time,"_ Layton challenged him, _"Got a whole collection of them here this time, in fact. Don't know who the others are."_ There was a pause as Layton made his assessment, _"Looks like a punk, a poof and a Plain-Jane to me."_

Evan breathed in and out. He assumed Robin was the poof and had heard rumours about some weird tattooist who had disappeared out of a toilet window which would probably explain the punk He had no idea about the plain-Jane, but it made no difference.

"Listen, you said tonight," he hissed, "I don't have your money yet!"

_"Yeah, I know I said the end of today was the deadline,"_ Layton sneered with a laugh, "_but guess what? I'm bringing it forward."_

"But if you give me until the end of the day I will _have_ your money! I'm _serious!"_

_"I don't give a damn if you'll have it by tonight. I want you down here now. Falcon Building. Bridge Street."_ Evan turned cold as Layton paused._ "It's gone beyond money now. You've got ten minutes."_

"Ten min- I _can't…"_ he tried to speak but the line went dead, "Layton_? Layton?"_

He gave a terrifying, lung-busting scream and threw the phone against the dashboard, then began to bite on his nails. He felt his hands quivering and his lip starting to tremble. There were tears in his eyes and a lump in his throat.

He sat and stared. Stared at the steering wheel. Stared out of the windscreen. Stared at his hands. Time was ticking away and he knew he didn't have much of it left. With a gulp of air, he quickly left the car and ran back into the hospital building. He had to see a man about a deal.

X

No one was more surprised to see Evan return than Nailer. The 'important business' he told the guards on the door that he 'had to see his client about' must have been pretty damn severe considering the tear tracks lining his face.

"Mister White?" the tired Nailer looked up in surprise, "I'm supposed to be getting some rest –"

Evan sank into the chair and looked at him urgently. His eyes were pleading and his face ashen.

"Our deal," he whispered.

Nailer raised an eyebrow. Things just got interesting.

"Yes?"

Evan swallowed.

"Can we bring it forward?" he begged.

~xXx~

As he pulled into the car park he looked nervously from side to side. He could see the other vehicle, the unmarked white van, just to one side. His hands trembled as he opened the door, stepped out, checked the keys were still in the ignition and pressed the horn once to raise Layton's attention. His eyes moved all around until they came to rest upon a figure looking over the edge of the roof. He was moving and swaggering all over the place – how he didn't fall, Evan had no idea.

_"The man of the hour!"_ Layton's voice was loud and crazed, _"Come and join us on the roof. It's almost like a party!"_

Evan took in a very deep breath, mumbled a prayer under his breath and then let his hands come to rest on the metal fire escape. Slowly, _so_ slowly he began his ascent. He didn't dare to look down – for more reasons than one.

X

They watched and waited. They saw the glance he threw them. Watched him honk the horn. Watched him climb up the fire escape. Laughed at him shaking and trembling all the way. When he finally disappeared over the top, out they came, tools in hand. To the car, fiddling, messing, sabotaging.

_Easy money,_ he'd said. Quickie. Nothing to it.

"Job done," said one.

The other nodded.

"Roof," he said.

"Roof."

~xXx~

How the hell did the bullet miss him? He'd fired right at his head!

Layton stared at the man before him. It was as though his bullet had passed right through flesh and bone with no effect. Then as the woman fell his confusion had grown even greater. Was this an effect of the last few decades of illegal goodies? The shock, the disbelief, the utter confusion – he panicked and for a moment he froze, but as the others all stood and stared around their fallen friend he knew he had to use the distraction to get away and leave this god-awful night behind.

Out of the door, down the fire escape he went, down, down, down – and now what?

The car was a gift.

He closed his eyes for a moment and cried out a loud whoop of thanks to whatever kind god of fate had allowed stupid Evan and his bag of guilt to leave the door open and the key in the ignition.

In desperation, the last thing you do is question.

You act. You take. You drive.

And that's what Layton did. He drove.

Unfortunately, he would never be able to stop.

~xXx~

_"Well go on then! You're supposed to be the bloody first aid representative in the division!"_

Robin was right and Kelly knew it, but she panicked. She'd panicked from the moment Layton fired the gun. Staring at Kim on the floor, an image flashed into her mind. One from long ago. One she'd tried so hard to forget and suddenly so many things fell into place.

Her head was screaming, _Oh my god, oh my god…_

Her body reacted by dropping to the floor and launching into the first aid that she'd been taught through boring courses and drills but inside her head there was nothing regulation or regular about her thoughts. Her swift actions as she checked for a pulse and breathing covered up for her shaking hands and the pressure she used against Kim's chest while she started resuscitation only served to help rid her of the anxiety, the despair and the anguish that were filling her slowly from her head right down to her toes.

As she worked upon her lifeless body she heard Robin's voice;

_"We've got to get him."_

_"But Kim –"_ That was Alex and her voice sounded desperate.

_"I know, I know, but we can't let him get away with this,"_ Robin's voice almost faded away as she worked on Kim, desperately trying to force breath into her body and bring back her heart beat.

She heard their footsteps clattering down the metal until they vanished into the ether and she could hear them no more. The distant sound of two cars pulling away was the last noise she heard as she worked and begged and prayed, her attempts becoming more frantic and desperate with ever second that passed.

"Come on, Kim," she gasped through the force of her movement, "come _on! This is not your time!"_

She counted as she worked, over and over. She heard people coming and going as the gun shots alerted the locals to something afoot and screaming idiots who panicked at the sight of Kim's blood and Kelly's CRP screamed and cried and '_Well I never'ed _before finally someone had the good sense to call for an ambulance.

"Come – on – _come –on – KIM!"_ she panted as she worked again, so desperate now that tears were starting to fall. She tried again to put the breath back in her lungs, to kick start them, to bring back their action, "I know you can make it. This is not your time. You can't 'go back' until you _go back_, so you can't die now!"

Now the tears were flowing fast and her breath was full of gasps and sobs. She wished she'd never placed her. She wished she hadn't put the pieces together. There were flashes of things she'd banished for so long, since the day _he_ brought a crack to her skull and now… now they were forcing their way back with all the might of a demolition ball.

"Come _on!"_ she cried, "I know you now! I remember, Kim! I – _fucking – remember!"_

One gasp, one staggered breath and Kelly reeled back in shock. There it was – _life._ A glimpse of it, barely there but hanging on. Kim was fighting. She was_ trying. _

"_Yes!"_ Kelly cried, "Now come on Kim! Stay with me now!"

The distant sound of a siren that was drawing closer brought Kelly to close her eyes and lean back with a gasp of relief. Her body was drained; her mind was in turmoil and her hands smeared with the blood of someone who would meet her again one day.

As the sound of paramedics pushing their way through the gathered crowd came, Kelly knew her part was over. And she knew now why she was there. She had a lot more respect for destiny these days.

Before she stood back and let the professionals take over she leaned forward, brushed the hair from Kim's face and whispered,

"_I'll see you at the millennium, Detective Chief Inspector."_

Then with legs of jelly she got to her feet and staggered backwards where she sank to the floor again and finally let the tears of a thousand emotions consume her.

**~xXx~**

**1995, One Hour Earlier**

Kim sat down at her desk with a couple of sausage rolls. Despite Gene telling her to go and get a piercing to make herself scarce she had a feeling she would be needed soon and only ventured as far as the canteen. It was hard finding anything that didn't include sprouts but finally she purchased the sausage rolls, checked them for suspicious green filling and – when satisfied they were sprout free – began to tuck in.

She was starving. She wasn't sure why. Maybe because she'd not eaten much the night before. She was tiring of takeaway pizza. All Simon talked about was Robin and his excellent cooking skills but it seemed very little if any had rubbed off on Simon as his favourite cooking implements were take-away menus.

Just as the sausage roll hovered in the air for a second bite her phone rang. She stared from the phone to the sausage roll. Her empty guts were begging her to ignore the call but the annoying object screaming that damn ringing noise at her implored her to give it some attention. She sighed.

"This had better not be a bloody prank call again," she mumbled, "Hello, DS Stringer?"

_"Hello… Kim?"_ Simon's voice sounded strained and breathy_, "It's me. I need you to do me a favour."_

"Simon?" she frowned, "are you OK? What kind of favour?" she paused, "It doesn't involve your guinea pigs does it?"

_"Gene's in a spot of bother. He's accidentally handcuffed himself to his car in the car park of Fenchurch West. Can you come and rescue him?"_

Kim's mouth fell open.

"Handcuffs?" she cried, "what was this? Some kind of kinky sex game gone wrong? He's not been kidnapped has he?"

_"No, really, he's fine… just mislaid the key, that's all,"_ said Simon, then to her shock he burped down the phone. What the hell was going on? Had they gone briefly on the piss? Something wasn't adding up. _"And you might want to bring some cutty-open things to get them off."_

Kim rolled her eyes.

"Simon, tonight we're having a tool naming lesson," she said with a sigh. "Don't worry, I'll be right there."

She hung up with a sigh. This wasn't making a lot of sense to her. How the hell was she going to get to Fenchurch West anyway? She tried to think logically. Simon's car was still at the flat, he'd been sent on the latte run and didn't take it. That was only down the road. If his keys were inside the flat she could drive over quickly.

A plan had formulated. Time for action.

~xXx~

Keats had not been having the greatest morning. 'Business' hadn't exactly gone as planned. All the dealing and double dealing was beginning to drive him crazy. He couldn't keep up. Then he decided to cheer himself up by tipping Gene off to the presence of a certain tape in his briefcase but Gene wasn't in his office so the call went through to CID instead.

"_DS Stringer?"_

Keats froze at those words.

_DS?_ Gene had promoted her? Well wasn't that fucking brilliant? One less carrot to dangle in front of her to lure her over to his station at some unspecified point in the future. He threw down the phone in a hurry. His anger was raging and it needed to go somewhere.

Or on someone.

~xXx~

"Nailer," the prison guard waved him across to the phone as his turn arrived.

Nailer reached into his pocket and pulled out a crumpled piece of paper then leaned against the wall, lifted the receiver and began to dial. He waited for his call to be answered.

_"Yup, hi. Talk to me." _

Nailer hated Keats's arrogance. He'd liked the guy at first but in recent times he'd heard a few things that didn't please him.

"Mister Keats, my trial is coming up and our little explosive friend is still at large," he said

_"Yeah, I know," _Keats sounded hesitant, "_It's sorted." _

"Well that's not what I've heard," Nailer told him, "seems he's still taking a walk on the wild side."

Keats's voice grew angry.

_"I said I'd done it. What do you take me for?"_

"I take you for a man who maybe needs to cancel our arrangement before he makes an enemy of someone he really should keep onside."

"_No, deal suits me perfectly. Why would I…"_

"Then stick to your side"

"_I'm not going to cross you, am I?" _

"It's strange, Keats, you're telling me one thing and my top salesman is telling me that you're 'helping yourself' more than you're helping me."

_"Well I don't care what he said_!" Keats's fury was growing, "_Remember something, my friend, while you're in there and I'm out here I'm the best buddy pal you've got. Remember that before you start throwing accusations around. Business is sorted. Go back to your gruel and dropping your soap in the shower."_

With that, the line went dead.

Nailer stared at the receiver for some time, then with a look of resignation he hung up, turned around and walked back in the other direction. He stopped beside the next man in the queue for the phone, pressed a slip of paper and two pills into his hand and said,

"Terminate his contract for me."

Then as the man walked to the phone and carried out the call, Keats's fate was sealed.

~xXx~

Kim pulled into the car park of Fenchurch West and could immediately see the problem. There was Gene, half out the car, flapping about in fury while one arm remained firmly inside the vehicle. She drew up alongside him, opened the door and stepped out.

"I thought Simon was joking!" she cried.

"He won't have enough of a bloody mouth left to joke with by the time I've finished with him!" cried Gene.

Kim reached into the car to pull out the cutty open things she'd brought under advisement.

"What the hell happened?" she asked.

"Shoebury and his flapping lips of doom!" Gene spat, "I'll kill him! I'll kill Keats, then I'll kill Miss Yo-Yo knickers and then I'll kill that jumped-up Shoe-shop assistant!"

_It's not funny, it's not funny, _Kim told herself over and over to try to stop herself laughing. She knew at this point it could only lead to demotion.

"_Simon_ did this?" she asked.

"He's got a death wish!" Gene spat, "I hope that bloody key comes out sideways!"

Kim hesitated, cutty-open things suspended in mid-air.

"You mean he…?" she frowned

"He'll be swallowing more than a bloody key when me fist gets anywhere near him, that's for sure," Gene spat and flapped as Kim came at the chain with a variety of tools.

"Hold still, Guv," she warned

"I lose any digits and you'll be losing yer job," Gene warned.

"Relax, I'm not Simon, I actually know how to use these things," mumbled Kim.

A moment later, Gene was free and finally got out the car.

"Right," he flexed his fingers and cracked his knuckles, "looks like I've got two sets of balls to remove now, bloody Shoebury."

He took a step towards the building but a shriek from Kim cut him off.

"_Guv!"_ he turned around to see Kim staring upward, looking panicked. "Up there – on the roof."

One glance.

Two people. One gun.

He couldn't see Simon but he was pretty sure he had to be up there too.

"Right," he said, jaw clenched, "hope you've got a head for heights, Stringer. Looks like the only way is up."

At a fair speed he paced into the station with Kim in hot pursuit. Jimbo had made enough use of roofs in the past. There would be no leap of faith this time.

X

There was no one around now. It had taken a while for the idiot in the handcuffs and the strange half woman/half metal girder to leave the car park but finally there was no one around to see.

"Right, let's get this over with," one of the men mumbled as he and his associate slipped from the unmarked white van and found a shiny red rental car in a corner of the car park.

"His first mistake, renting a car from Nick's mate," the second man said with a laugh.

Tools were used, brakes were cut and two men nodded to each other. In and out, easy money.

"Job done," they agreed.

~xXx~

**Ten tons of truth later**

Even Gene had never driven at such speed before. He glanced at Kim's body in the rear view mirror. He wasn't used to taking a step back but Simon's insistence had spoken to him deeply. He knew too well of Simon's reluctance in his role, and he could understand it. Simon had been through so many changes in such a short space of time, it was killing him to try to adjust, but the way his instinct had taken over and forced him to take charge showed Gene one thing –

He was a natural.

There was a strange buzzing and a burst of static as the car radio switched itself on.

"_Bloody thing_," mumbled Gene. He didn't even have it tuned in. He wasn't really a radio kind of person. Too many cheesy DJs playing too many cheesy songs. He tried to switch it off but couldn't find the right button as it crackled and fizzed, and finally a voice came bursting through.

"…_and finally, ambulance and fire crews are on the scene of a motor accident on the route to the airfield at…"_ there was a buzz and a fizzing as the news tuned in and out, "_Ffffzzzzzzzzzz_…_just before five this morning when passers-by called nine nine nine to report two vehicles and three casualties at the scene. It is thought that two of those taken to hospital are missing Detective Inspector Alex Drake and –"_

"_What?"_

Gene slammed his foot on the brakes and pulled to a sudden halt as those words threatened to set his hands trembling too much to drive, "

"_- Police Inspector Robin Thomas. A nationwide search has been underway since Wednesday. The third casualty has been confirmed as Arthur Layton, the suspect in the shooting of –"_

A buzzing took over as static burst through again and finally the radio fizzled away to nothing. Gene sat there, as still as a statue, trying to remember to breathe in and out. Those words slowly sank in. He couldn't understand where they had come from or how he'd been receiving them but he understood them. There they were; the echoes of another plain, as though they'd been running so closely together that things were crossing over. He shook as he thought about those words. Alex and _Robin?_ _Layton_?

A cold sense of fear fell upon him. He could feel the parallels. They were becoming clearer.

A sense of nausea rose in his chest. He had to move fast.

As though he'd barely stopped, he put his foot down and screamed to the hospital, Kim's welfare of great importance. He knew she wouldn't let Simon down. Almost as soon as he'd passed her to the capable hands of the medical professionals and they had begun to work on her he was back on the road. He had one destination in mind. He didn't know what he was going to do when he got there. He didn't know what he was _supposed_ to do. But he had a feeling he knew what he was going to find.

And the rest? The rest, he figured would fall into place when he arrived.

This was destiny.

Sometimes you just had to trust it.


	76. Chapter 39, 2011: Decrescendo

**Chapter Thirty Nine: 2011**

Kelly reluctantly peered around the door of Alex's hospital room where Robin still sat beside her bed. His head lay against the covers, his eyes closed and his breath shallow.

"Robin?" she said quietly.

"Hmm?" Robin stirred a little them opened his eyes in a slight panic. _Sprung._ He cursed himself for falling asleep. "What's the time?"

"Time you got a watch," Kelly couldn't resist the most childish gag of all.

Robin groaned and looked at his wrist.

"It actually _is_ time I got a watch," he mumbled, "Mine's cracked." He gave another groan. "And time to get a new car."

"Sorry," Kelly said a little awkwardly. She tapped her fingers against the door, "Look, Robin, I'm really sorry about this and I know it's the last thing you want to hear but but the doctors said that…" she paused, "hang on, I wrote this down…" she looked at her hand where some words were scrawled in biro, _"If you're going to play silly buggers and risk becoming a walking heart attack by not receiving proper medical care and attention then can you at least go and get dressed and remove your stuff, including your single shoe, from that room so they can put someone else in it?"_

Robin frowned.

"You wrote all that on your hand?" he asked.

"I have very tiny handwriting," Kelly pointed out.

Robin nodded.

"True," he said, "OK, I'll go and get my stuff." He began to stand up, then glanced at Kelly, "Sorry, can I just… you know, have a moment?"

Kelly nodded.

"Of course," she said with a tired smile, then left him in peace and closed the door behind her.

Robin stared at Alex as he sank back into the chair. There was so much he wished he could say.

"Oh, _God,"_ he sighed deeply, "this used to be a familiar sight. Me sitting here, talking to you, all those weeks after Simon died." He closed his eyes. "And then, this last week, I've gotten used to you answering me when I spoke to you, looking back at me, joking, smiling – even with all the shit we've been through." He looked down, "damn, it's hard going back to silent Alex."

He gave a little smile as he stared at her peaceful face.

"I think you're _there,"_ he whispered, "_Home._ I can see it on your face. At least, I hope you are. Or at the very least, that a _part_ of you is." He looked down. "I think I almost made it over with you. But something or someone wouldn't let me." He gave a deep sigh as he thought about the voices in the ambulance. Why didn't they just let him _go? _He took a deep breath. "Well, this is definitely one for the record books," he whispered, "the strangest week in history." He gave a slightly awkward laugh. Strange had just about summed it up. Living on the run, wearing other people's clothes, sleeping in other people's beds, cooking in other people's kitchens. And some unexpected emotions. "You know this is the closest I've ever come to having a crush on a member of the opposite sex?" Robin said quietly, looking around to make sure no one else heard, "well, apart from the Scully thing, but we'll keep that between you and me, OK?"

his heart sank a little. He wasn't sure she would ever open her eyes again. He'd never even been able to thank her for giving him back something he'd been lacking since he lost Simon. _Life._

He drew in his breath and slowly got to his feet.

"I'd better go before they throw my one remaining shoe in the bin," he said. He paused and sighed. "God, what did I look like? I might as well keep this bloody gown on, the state of me with my one shoe, smashed-up watch and a shirt I'd been sleeping in for the last two nights!" He leaned forward and brushed Alex's hair a little to one side. He gave her a smile but it was sad and strained. "Sleep well, Alex," he whispered, his voice breaking just a little, "I'm going to miss you, _so_ much."

He scooped to kiss her forehead then straightened up and breathed in deeply. He was determined not to cry like a soppy idiot. Drawing together his strength he made his face neutral and began to walk to the doorway but before he'd taken many steps the door opened and someone stepped in. Someone Robin wasn't expecting to see. He bristled instantly.

"Hello, Robin."

"Evan."

Evan looked down. He seemed a much smaller man suddenly, as though he'd lost a couple of inches of height. Was this what it was like to be humbled? He barely looked Robin in the eye.

"Robin," he began quietly, "you…" he found he couldn't even start the sentence, let alone finish it.

Robin stared at Evan. He was starting to find a strength he didn't know he had before. He had always found it difficult to stand up for himself, perhaps not in a professional capacity but when it came to a private situation he'd usually be the one hiding away and avoiding conflict.

Not now. Not any more.

"They've finished questioning you then?" he asked bluntly. His jaw was set so firmly that Evan reeled a little.

"Um, yes," he gave a feeble smile, "for now."

Robin swallowed.

"Never mind," he said, "I'm sure they'll be back with more questions soon. I'm sure by that point you'll be glad of the company."

Evan seemed to crumble before his eyes.

"Look, Robin," he said, what I did, what I said to you, it was wrong, and –"

"Yes it was," Robin began, "It was absolutely bloody wrong. Not only wasn't it true but you made me feel like shit,_ and_ put Alex in danger."

"I know, I know…"

"You were going to have her sectioned!"

"I know!" Evan started to perspire, "Robin, I was scared – she was saying things that didn't make any sense, and I thought that the coma had caused her some permanent mental damage…"

"Like watching your parents blown to pieces because your mother's had an affair with some weirdo in a beard?" cried Robin. He stared at Evan. Glared. He thought for a moment he saw Evan gulp but he couldn't be sure. "You kept that dirty little secret for all those years and when it came down to it you almost caused Alex to die. All because you couldn't keep it in your pants."

"Robin! I –"

"And all the time you played the martyr," Robin wasn't finished yet, "taking in the orphan, then doing the same for Molly. All the time you were hiding that guilt and you were too damn chicken to admit to it." He took a step towards him and, despite still wearing his hospital smock, seemed to make Evan feel daunted, "and now you've lost her forever."

"I might not…" Evan said weakly.

"Perhaps," Robin spat, "you'd better and hope and pray that _– if or when_ she finally wakes up – she doesn't remember any of that little rooftop episode." He stepped closer and leaned in threateningly near. "But I will promise you one thing, Evan. I won't forget. Not one fucking second of it, And if you do one thing – just take one step out of line – I will make sure that she is left in no doubt how far she can trust you because if you hurt her –_ ever_ hurt her again, then you're going to be picking bits of beard out of every orifice for weeks. You understand?"

Evan took a step back with a gulp and nodded meekly.

"Yes," he whispered.

"Good," said Robin.

Evan watched as he started to leave.

"Robin, if there are any legal repercussions from your time with Alex…"

"I won't be using your services, _thank_ you," Robin spat. He glanced back at Alex. "Make sure they keep her tattoo clean and moisturised," he said quietly, "I don't want it going bad."

With that he hung his head a little and left the room.

Evan stood, staring after him for a moment. Then with a frown he asked,

"_What_ tattoo?"

~xXx~

Robin had another stop before he could go and pick up his shoe and get out of that stupid gown. He walked along the corridor nervously. The nurse had been reluctant enough to let him know the room number in the first place. It had taken some of his new found no-nonsense determination and the threat of mooning at her from his hospital gown to persuade her. Finally, there he was, at the door of her room.

He opened it slowly and peered inside. There were so many machines around her. Suddenly she seemed so small.

"Hello Kim," he whispered as he tiptoed to her bedside.

Her surgery had been long and complicated. She had lost a lot of blood and it had been touch and go for some time but her own determination must have brought her through safely. If it hadn't been for Kelly resuscitating her she wouldn't still be there now.

"Oh god, look at you," so much guilt filled Robin. She'd spent so long building up her own life after her time in Gene's world; changing her name, her career, _everything –_ now they'd swept in and changed everything in the blink of an eye. "I'm so sorry. We didn't want you to go through any of this. You were the only one we could go to for help, and…" he gave a deep sigh, "you helped us _so_ much, Kim. You did so much. Giving us somewhere to stay, helping us work everything out. What you did on the roof, getting Layton to start opening up. You're wasted out of the force, you know. Your skills are absolutely wasted." He looked down and found her hand which he rubbed gently. "Not sure what I can do or say to make it up to you for everything we've put you through. Except," he sighed, "that I'm glad I've made a friend."

It felt for all the world as though her hand twitched below his. He looked down, a little shaken by the unexpected movement and gave a gasp. Her fingers moved just a touch.

"_Kim?"_

He looked at her face. There was some definite movement, her eyelids were flickering slightly and her lips moved just a fraction. He leaned forward, his heart racing and a mix of hope and nervous anticipation running through his veins. He watched and waited as the tiniest murmur came from her mouth.

"Oh god, Kim – you're alright," the sigh of relief he gave was so loud he thought people across the other side of the city heard, "Kim? Kim, can you hear me?" he peered at her face, then realised a looming Robin was probably not the first thing she wanted to see so he drew back a little. Her eyelids fluttered a few times and finally opened. Her eyes looked heavy and her face a picture of pain and exhaustion.

"_Hmmm?"_ she tried to mumble a little as she looked at him, "_whrrrmi?"_

"What, Kim?" he leaned a little closer and tried to understand her.

Kim tried to focus and spoke again.

"Where am I?" she asked quietly, every word a strain. She flinched as the pain from the bullet wound took her breath away.

"You're in hospital," Robin told her, "you were shot. Do you remember?" he watched her face become strained and stressed. "Kelly saved your life, she got your heart started again."

Kim blinked a few times.

"Who?" she whispered.

"Kelly," said Robin, "my friend from work, she was helping us."

Kim took a deep breath and stared at Robin.

"Who are you?" she mumbled.

Robin frowned.

"It's me," he said, "Robin."

Kim looked at him.

"Who?"

Robin felt a cold dread settle over his shoulders.

"Robin," he said again, "We've been helping Alex, and –"

Kim gave a mumble and a groan.

"Where's Alex?" she asked quietly, "where's Simon? Where's Gene?"

"_Gene?"_ Robin drew back a little, "God, no, Kim, you –"

From the pain and the distress came a little laugh from Kim that – in his relief -was one of the most beautiful things Robin had ever heard.

"Robin, you're so easy," she said quietly.

Robin closed his eyes and gave a sigh of both relief and annoyance.

"Kim, you bloody idiot," he cried, "I thought I was going to have to go round the whole bloody cycle all over again!"

Kim's face was still wracked with agony and none the better for laughing but there was something in her eyes. Life. A sparkle.

"Layton?" she asked.

Robin gave a sigh as his feelings darkened.

"We chased him," he said quietly, "the brakes on the car he took had been cut and there was a crash, and Alex…" he felt a lump in his throat, "she's unconscious."

Kim gave a feeble nod.

"As it should be," she whispered.

Robin bit his lip.

"Layton's unconscious too," he said, "but at least that means he's not going anywhere."

Kim nodded slowly.

"Good," she whispered.

Robin hesitated. He looked at her seriously.

"Kim?" he asked.

"Hmm?"

He bit his lip.

"While you were…" he coughed a little, "did you go… You know. _Back there?"_

Kim eyed him.

"No," she mumbled, "I went to a tattooist one."

Robin reeled backwards.

"You did?" he cried.

"It was horrible," she mumbled, "ancient tattooing equipment, designs that have been out for decades…" she looked at the horrified expression in Robin's face and burst into more agonising laughter. "I can't believe how easy you are," she laughed, "I've got you again."

Robin closed his eyes and this time gave a slightly louder groan of annoyance, genuinely frustrated.

"I can't believe you did that!" he cried, "that's not funny!"

"_Was,"_ Kim argued.

Robin shook his head and sighed.

"They must have removed your good taste when they took the bullet out," he told her. He saw a flicker of a genuine smile across her face.

"Linda?" she whispered, "and my boys?"

Robin nodded slowly.

"They've called them," he said, "they're on their way home."

Kim closed her eyes.

"I'm going to have a lot of questions to answer," she mumbled.

"You and me both," sighed Robin. He looked at her seriously. "Kim, I've got to go and reclaim Simon's shirt and my shoe before they throw them out and I end up walking home in this." He noticed a smirk of amusement from Kim at the thought of him walking home in his backless smock, "But I'll be back tomorrow."

Kim looked up at him as he got to his feet. It occurred to her that she finally had something she'd wanted for so very many years – a friend who understood.

"Rob?" she said quietly.

Kim's use of the shortened version of his name caught Robin a little off guard. He looked at her.

"Yeah?"

"_You're_ OK though?" she asked, "aren't you?"

Robin hesitated. This wasn't the time to go into mysterious heart issues and half remembered sensations of reaching out to somebody. Eventually he gave a little smile.

"Probably as good as I've been in months," he said quietly. In Kim he'd found the same understanding she's found in him.

Kim gave him a tiny nod.

"Good," she whispered as her eyes began to close.

Robin walked slowly to the door.

"Goodbye, Kim," he said quietly, "

"Bye, Robin," she said tiredly, "we can talk about your emotional tangles tomorrow."

Robin gave a gentle laugh.

"That's alright," he said quietly, "I think I'll be fine now."

"If you're sure," Kim mumbled but already sleep was starting to pull her in.

Robin gave her one last smile before he left the room and slowly found his way back to his room. His clothes were sitting beside the bed with one shoe perched on the top. With a sigh he pulled on his trousers and slipped his arms into Simon's shirt. How many days had he been wearing those same clothes? He was more or less certain that they could practically stand up on their own by now.

As he finished buttoning the shirt and reached for his solo shoe there was a stern knock on the door and he looked behind him. It took him a few moments to recognise the man standing in the doorway.

"Superintendent Hedges?" He said in surprise. In the next heartbeat came the dreadful fear that his P45 was about to find its way into his hand.

_This is it,_ he thought.

The end of his career. Now what? He could take a leaf out of Kim's book and retrain, he thought. Not that he'd had much luck with previous careers before joining the police force. He thought about retraining as a chef but following in his father's footsteps wasn't part of his life's plan. Perhaps a professional dog trainer? Dog trainer to the stars, maybe? Training the dogs of the rich and famous who were too posh to scoop poop themselves. Hmm, maybe he was onto something now…

"_Excellent work."_

With those words his dreams of a swelling wallet courtesy of his assistance to famous people with unruly canines disappeared and in their place came complete confusion.

"I…. _what?"_ he frowned.

"Tracking Arthur Layton," the Superintendent said, "two and a half years we've been on his tail and nothing. Between you and Detective Inspector Drake, you managed the unthinkable in days."

Robin looked down. Getting Layton had not exactly been the intention of the exercise but he wasn't to know that.

"T-thank you, sir," he said quietly, blushing just a little. He wasn't used to that sort of praise.

"I'm not sure how much you are aware of but it seems the car Mister Layton stole had been sabotaged," Hedges told him, "the owner of the vehicle has already been questioned and a warrant for his arrest is looking likely in the next few days."

Robin swallowed. It was no more than Evan deserved but he couldn't help thinking of Molly and what would become of her.

"Thank you for letting me know," Robin said quietly, aware that this was old news.

The super looked at him.

"You are aware that there has been a search for you and DI Drake this week?" he asked.

Robin hesitated.

"I," he swallowed, "I wouldn't know," he said quietly, "we were too busy tracking Layton to watch the news."

Hedges eyed him warily. It sounded like a pile of steaming doo-doo to him but he was prepared to accept that for now. Catching Layton had brought a lot of positive attention for the unit and he was willing to sweep one or two matters under the carpet.

"I hear you had some medical problems after the crash?" he asked.

Robin felt his heart sinking a little.

"They want to keep me in but I think I'll be better off at home," he said.

Hedges nodded.

"Quite right, can't abide hospitals either," he said, "however, don't be silly with your recovery. Take some time to recuperate. You were due back to work on Monday this week, weren't you?" Robin nodded. "Take another week and then we'll talk."

Robin frowned. Was this the P45 line?

"Sir?"

The Super walked back to the door then turned around.

"A collar like Layton shows much initiative," he said, "just the kind of skill we are looking for to fill the Chief Inspector post."

Robin felt his heart flip-flop in his chest. For a moment he wondered if he needed to call for the defibrillator again.

"Sir?"

"That's if you're interested?"

Robin's mouth fell open a little. The shock on his face was easy to see. He struggled to reply as words escaped him.

"I… I…" he tried to pull himself together, "Well, yes, sir… _thank you_, sir…" a slightly dumb smile spread across his face, as though he'd just seen his numbers come up on the lottery.

Hedges nodded and gave him a smile.

"Good," he said, "I'm very pleased to hear it. We will talk this week." He gave Robin a nod. "Look after yourself. And stay away from that damn road. It's like a bullet with your name on it"

Robin have a half smile as Hedges left, then stumbled a little and sat on the edge of the bed. The proposition had taken him completely unawares. As far as he was concerned he was about to kiss his career goodbye.

"Bloody hell," he whispered. He couldn't quite take this in. In the space of a week not only had his life been turned upside down but now it was turning inside out as well. He closed his eyes for a second. He felt as though he couldn't quite catch his breath.

He truly had no idea what the future held for him but for the first time since Simon died he at least felt that he had one. A future, that was. It was the first time he started to see his life unfolding again, as though the cocoon he'd been in for the last few months was starting to split and he could feel the air against his wings.

It was the end of one chapter and the start of a new. Wherever he went from there, he was certain that things had to get better, and it was about time too.

"Bring it on, world," he whispered to himself, "bring it on."


	77. Chapter 39, 1995: Espressione

_**A/N: Because my muse went a bit mad last night tomorrow will now see a double dose! **_

_**My portrait of Victoria is now up on my fic LJ, the link can be found on my profile!**_

**Chapter Thirty Nine: 1995**

Simon walked down what felt like an endless corridor, checking every doorway as he went. Gene frowned as he gave one frustrated sigh after another.

"You turned into some kind of perve?" he asked, "hoping to catch someone on the bedpan?"

Simon's mouth fell open, totally aghast.

"Gene! No!" he cried, "bloody hell."

"Well why are you spying on the sick and injured then?" he demanded.

Simon gave a deep sigh.

"I don't know," he said sadly, "I just thought… just had a feeling someone might be here, that's all."

Gene gave him a funny look.

"A brain cell salesman?" he asked, "sounds like you could do with a few of those."

Simon rolled his eyes and ignored Gene. He just couldn't shake the feeling that he'd been as close to Robin as he had been the day Robin had woken up and vanished from 1995. There was a part of him that felt as though he should be just down the corridor, in one of those rooms after some unexplainable accident, like a car accident, or a pizza making incident or something involving white-water rafting. He didn't care what or how, he just couldn't shake that feeling. But there was no sign of him anywhere so he tried to push it out of his mind as they approached a doctor.

He walked up a little nervously to him and said,

"I wonder if you can help me, I'm trying to find out how Kim Stringer's doing?"

The doctor looked a little doubtful.

"_Ri-i-i-i-ight,"_ he began, "and are you her next of kin?"

"No," said Simon.

"Right, well, I'm afraid we really should be speaking to her family at this stage."

"But she doesn't have any family!" cried Simon.

The doctor didn't have time for this.

"Sorry," he said and walked away.

Simon turned a deep, dark shade of red as his blood boiled. This wasn't the first time he'd been scuppered from seeing Kim in a hospital by a jobs-worth doctor and the lack of being her next of kin.

Gene gave a slightly amused laugh.

"Nice persuasion technique, Shoebury," he said, "what do you do for an encore? Getting thrown out on yer arse?"

"Well _go on_ then," Simon cried, "you show me how it's done!"

"Fine," said Gene. He put his hands to his hips, took on a deeply commanding, manly stance, accosted a doctor and said,

"Hello good doctor, could you be so good as to tell me where DCI Alex Drake is?"

"Are you her next of kin?" asked the doctor.

"Yes," said Gene.

"Right, she'd through that corridor, turn right, follow the signs to ICU and someone will help you on reception."

"Very much obliged," Gene smiled.

Simon scowled.

"Gene, that wasn't what I had in mind!" he cried, "you actually _are_ her next of kin!"

Gene gave Simon a mocking smile.

"Like I said before, Simon, you've either got it or you haven't.

Simon scowled as he watched Gene head down the corridor. He looked around and spotted a nurse heading in his direction so he stepped towards her and tried again.

"Excuse me," he began, "can you tell me where I can find Kim Stringer?"

The nurse glanced at him.

"Are you her next of kin, sir?" she asked.

"Uh, _yes,"_ said Simon.

The nurse hesitated.

"What relation?"

Simon froze.

"Pardon?"

"What relation are you?"

Simon gulped and panicked.

"I'm her brother," he tried.

The nurse nodded slowly.

"Do you have any ID?" she asked.

Simon felt like tugging his hair out.

"_Forget it!"_ he cried, "just forget it!" He sighed and closed his eyes. This was getting him nowhere. Time to try another tactic. He walked away until he found a small reception unit and asked someone at the glass window how to find Kim.

"Are you a relative?" she asked.

Simon pulled out his ID.

"No, I'm investigating her shooting," he lied, "I need to ask her some questions."

"Oh, I'm sorry, sir," the lady said, "but she's under heavy sedation and won't be able to answer any questions for some time. Try again tomorrow."

Simon gave a growl of frustration and head-butted the wall a little too hard, knocked himself senseless, fell to the floor and woke up a few seconds later with his head smothered in bandage which he hastily removed before making a speedy exit from the corridor.

Finally he decided to locate her by fair means or foul so he went to the hospital gift shop, bought the largest box of chocolates he could find and paid a passer-by to deliver them to reception so that he could sneak by while everyone was distracted in their pursuit of sugar. He felt pretty damn pleased with himself as he managed to creep past, but less pleased as a boy with a saucepan stuck on his head commented, "_Mummy, why has that silly man got a tail?"_ at which point he discovered one of the bandages was stuck to his backside, trailing behind him as though he was some kind of humanoid rat.

He finally located Kim's room and with a sigh of relief he slipped through the doorway before anyone could stop him.

She looked so small and frail lying in the hospital bed. It was even worse than after her miscarriage. The machines around her seemed to dwarf her beneath the covers. Her skin was a deathly pale and all her jewellery had been removed, leaving her looking a bit like am innocent, sick little girl.

"Kim?" he said quietly as he sat beside her. He reached for her hand and held it gently. It seemed a little cold so he rubbed it to warm it up. "Hey, Kim – you're still here. You're still fighting. I knew you would. I just knew. I felt it." He flinched a little. If he was honest he struggled every bit as much with the things he _knew _and the things he felt as he had the day he discovered he had a role to play in this world.

"I knew this wasn't your time," he said quietly, "I know you go home one day, but this wasn't time for that either. I don't think you're done here." He shook his head slowly. "I can't explain it, Kim. I think you still have a job to do. I don't know why, I just do. I think whatever you need to do here, you're not quite there yet. Whether it's something you have to learn about yourself, something you need to do for Gene, something to do with Keats… maybe something to help _me._ I don't know. I just know that you weren't ready to go."

He looked at her still features, the dressing covering the terrible wound on her neck and the ghostly tone of her skin.

"God, Kim, how much do you have to go through here? This doesn't seem fair. Not for you! You're so –"

He shook his head slowly. Kim had made her fair share of mistakes – she'd been misled by Keats, misunderstood Gene for a long time, led a poor quality of lifestyle and abused her body but she had so much _life,_ such a good heart and so much to give. If Gene's world was supposed to be a place for the dead and the dying to lay their demons to rest then how come Kim just seemed to be encountering more and more every day?

Just as his mind ran through the list of things he wished Kim hadn't had to go through, he felt her hand twitch in his. With a gasp of surprise he looked down. Sure enough, her hand was moving just a little.

"_Kim?"_

He looked at her face. There was movement in her eyes; she wasn't quite managing to open them but they were flickering a little. Her lips gently moved as though trying to utter a silent word.

He drew back a little as he felt a strong sense of relief washing over him from head to toe like hot water cascading down to his body from a shower. He gave a cry of joy before he could stop himself and looked back at her with a smile spreading across his face.

"_Kim!_ Kim, it's me, it's Simon."

This time her eyes fluttered open, just for a second before her eyelids grew too heavy and they closed again. Her lips moved once more, trying desperately to say something, anything but there was no voice behind her words.

"Shh, it's OK Kim," Simon told her, brushing the hair away from her face, "you're OK. The bullet's gone, and you're going to be fine."

Kim tried to speak again. There was one word that Simon could make out and it sounded like '_Home'_ but he couldn't be sure.

"It's OK, it's OK," he said quietly, "it'll take a while. Just relax, I'll be here. I'll be here when you feel better. You can talk my ear off then." He paused. "or threaten to do horrible things to my X-Files poster."

He could have been mistaken but he thought he saw just the tiniest smile flicker onto Kim's face right there and then. It was the most beautiful sight. The moment she dropped, he wondered if he would ever see her smile again. He breathed in deeply as he replayed the moment; the bullet, Keats, Gene leaning over her. He realised for the first time that Keats hadn't even tried to take her soul.

What did that say about him? Or her, for that matter?

He watched Kim's face as her eyes closed again and she drifted back into a heavily medicated sleep. He was sure it wouldn't be long before she would awaken once more and start tearing the piss out of him for something to do with Red Dwarf, his guinea pigs or his jumper, but he would look forward to that moment. He couldn't wait, in fact. Because Kim was someone that he truly considered a friend and in a place that could change and warp around you at any moment that was something to hold onto dearly.

~xXx~

_I've been here before._

Gene took a deep breath as he walked into Alex's hospital room. He couldn't believe where they'd put her. Back in the same room, the same damn room she'd been in when Keats sank a bullet into her head just a few weeks earlier.

His footsteps echoed as he walked slowly towards the bed. He hated what this was doing to him. Hated the way it was making him feel. All that stupid bollocks Simon had spouted about him having a heart – he was thinking there was a very slight, horrible possibility that it might actually be true. At least if the overwhelming sensation of anguish at the sight of Bolly laying before him, lifeless once again, was anything to go by.

"Oh _God,_ Bols," he sighed, "that's if I'm allowed to call you that again?"

He sat down beside her. Her chest rose and fell so slightly he could barely see it for certain. He took a deep breath and leaned forward.

"So, me and you need to 'ave a talk," he told her, "because we need to get something straight here. You and me are supposed to be a team. Now, for that to work I need you back 'ere; living, breathing and talking me ear off. But I need the _right _you this time. I don't need some finger-waggling nympho with a Jimbo obsession." He thought about holding her hand but didn't want anyone to walk in and catch him so he folded his arms insisted. "I need you. _Bolly._ I need the you who gives me grief about what we can and can't do in the Fiat. Even, I might add when I've gone to extreme length to draw factually accurate diagrams to illustrate how it'll work. I need the you who finds papers you've _forgotten_ about just so you can come and check up on me, make sure I've not drunk me weight in scotch and slipped into a coma under me desk. I need the you who takes three quarters of yer pink, girly duvet and leaves me with cold bloody legs. I need," he paused as he swallowed. "I need you. That's all I need."

He looked down. The _property of NHS_ sheets looked no more comfortable now than when he'd been staring at them a couple of weeks ago. He shook his head a little.

"Where have you been, Bolly?" he asked, "I heard it. The radio. You and Batman, off on a fun outing with Layton. What's been happening to yer?" This time his hand skimmed across hers, just for a moment. Just long enough to feel her skin; smooth, soft but a little cold. He tucked it under the sheet to let it warm up.

"I hope someone's been looking after you," he said a little sternly, as though whoever had or had not been looking after Alex would hear, "If you've been with Batman then it sounds like you've at least had a decent bloody meal. Simon talks about him like he's getting his own bloody slot on Ready Steady Cook!"

He studied her lifeless form. What the hell had Keats done to her? That haircut; the quiff, now set loose and flopping over her face but not enough to hide the bullet wound. That, he thought, was one of the sickest parts. The scar he'd put there, he wanted on display. It made his blood boil.

He looked at her cheeks. They seemed a little drawn in, as though he'd been starving her. Her eyes were still caked with the make-up he'd been so instant she wore and her body –

He felt his stomach lurch and swallowed down bile as he thought about Keats and what he'd seen on the tape. How was he supposed to banish that from his mind? It wasn't _his_ Alex. He knew that. Inside her head, it was a very different woman. But it was _her_ body. He felt violently sick as he thought about it and blood started pumping through his veins with anger. He wanted to leap up right there and then, to run to Keats's room, jump up and down on his face, rip out his life-sustaining tubes and jam several hypodermic syringes into his testicles, but he had a feeling the guards on the door might have something to say about that. While this was a risk he might have taken in the past he didn't want to put his own freedom in jeopardy now. Not when he knew Alex could wake up at any time. He needed to be there when she did.

Besides, with Jimbo in charge of Fenchurch West he knew that spending any time in a cell wasn't going to be a pleasant experience.

"Alright, Drake," he began seriously, "I'll level with you. You're going to get back here and you're going to bloody do it now, because while you might be DCI I outrank you in the pathetic, _needing someone to sort me out_ stakes. Shoebury's got me on the bloody Pizza-Hut diet, I'm living with two homos and I think I'm getting a bloody Noel Edmonds jumper in me stocking for Christmas. I've not been to _Bask_ in so long they've probably changed all me best karaoke numbers, I'm intimately acquainted with Shoebury's bloody couch and even the waitress in Latte Land is asking where me better half is." He scowled, "and she had no hesitation in putting it in those terms either."

He exhaled loudly and leaned back in his chair.

"You see, that's the thing about me, Bols. I need you because," he closed his eyes for a moment, "you're the other bit of me. Half of me is missing. I don't like being half here and half lost in a black 'ole." He looked at her face as she breathed in and out. There wasn't a flicker there. Not yet, anyway.

"I know you're in there, Bolly. I saw you. There, in yer eyes."

He slowly stood up. He couldn't stand staring at her for much longer. Not while he would never get a smile or a comment or some kind of put-down about his Fiat love-making attempts. He was no better at this than he had been as he'd talked to her motionless form just a few weeks ago.

"You open those mince pies, Drakey. Don't make me slap you again." He gave a sigh. It was time to depart before he found out for sure whether or not he had a heart by picking up its fragments from the floor when it shattered at the sight of her lying there so still.

He began to lean forward to whisper to her but then stopped and held back. He'd done that once before. This time he wanted to make sure the right Alex would be there to hear the words when he said them. Instead, one very gentle kiss followed by a shifty look around to make sure no one had seen him was his parting gesture before he slowly walked from the room.

He pulled his flask from his pocket and took a long drink. He could hardly start to comprehend the events of the day, nor of the last few weeks. He still had the Super to see and some fast talking to do, not to mention some serious discussions with Simon. The truth had thrown his life into chaos.

Right now, all he wanted was the calming anaesthetic of his flask. The scotch would dull some of his worries and his fears while blocking out some of the truths he wasn't ready to learn. They held sharp edges that hurt deeply. He needed to find a way to file them down, to take away their power and to rob them of their strength. There was only one way to do that. Just one way to put himself on a level footing with Keats, and that was to know everything.

"The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the bloody awful, soul-sucking truth," he mumbled to himself.

It was time for a little basement searching of his own, and he wasn't even intending to take a jumper.


	78. Chapter 40, 2011: Gentile

_**A/N: My muse has gone mad. Evan is considering having it sectioned. Expect 2 chapters tonight and 2 tomorrow at least!**_

**Chapter Forty: 2011**

Robin turned over in bed, mumbling and muttering and longing to wake from the perpetual nightmare that had been plaguing him all night long. When finally his eyes opened and he found himself awake once again he felt quite disorientated. He couldn't work out where he was for several moments. Being back in his own bed, in his own flat, with his own bits and pieces around him was quite bizarre and almost disconcerting in a strange way.

Upon arriving home the day before his drained body had taken him straight to bed but the whole night had been one long mishmash of nightmare thoughts and images that brought him pain and confusion. Living the car crash again and again, dreaming of the sensation he felt as Alex's soul lifted from her within his arms, endless nightmares of reaching out and begging for Simon to help him stay by his side and images of Layton's crazed face, the gun pointing at him and the bullet passing right through.

Twice he'd woken up screaming for Alex, expecting her to be there with him, in some stranger's bed again.

Once, he'd woken up holding his head because he thought a bullet had been fired into his skull.

At one point he had even woken from a nightmare about Evan drawing lovely beards on all his DVD covers.

He had never felt so relieved to see morning arrive.

Eventually he laid flat on his back, staring at the ceiling, trying to pull together some semblance of thoughts. The last few days had shaken up his life and he wasn't sure how to move on from it.

With a deep sigh he reached for the remote and switched on the television. He leaned back against his pillows and waited for some chirpy newsreader to annoy the hell out of him. Instead, a familiar face appeared on the screen.

"…_and yesterday took renowned beard model and so-so solicitor Evan White in for questioning." _

"Oh great," Robin groaned, burying his head in the pillow, "I thought I'd seen enough of that beard for one lifetime."

"_Arthur Layton had been in hiding for the last two and a half years following the shooting of Detective Inspector Alex Drake who had been assumed missing this week with Police Inspector Robin Thomas." _Robin gave a mocking sob and added a second pillow to his attempt at hiding.

"Great!" he cried, "just great! I thought my ugly mug would finally be off the news!"

"_When Drake learned that her would-be killer was still on the loose she and her friend took matters into their own hands and chased him down."_

"Yes, you keep telling yourself that's what we'd intended to do," sight Robin, "nothing to do with the whole going back in time thing at all."

"_It had initially been through that Robin Thomas was slightly deranged and wanted to tattoo his police dogs –"_

"What?" Robin cried.

"…_But it since appears that he has all his marbles after all."_

Robin frowned, threw the pillows down and switched off the TV.

"Talk about dumbing down," he mumbled.

He got to his feet and opened his wardrobe. How bizarre it was to have all his own clothes to hand. It made him sigh a little. It was something he'd missed, and yet now all he could think about were the things he missed from his time 'on the run'. He pulled out a clean shirt and a pair of trousers, then slouched through to the bathroom.

He took a long shower that morning, so long that eventually the water ran cold. He must have used three different shower gels but still felt as though he had sweat, dirt and smoke damage all over him. When he finally dressed and rubbed his damp hair with a towel he looked at himself in the mirror and tried to work out what had changed. Something was different.

Had he aged in a week? Had the strain of keeping Alex safe from Evan added wrinkles to his brow?

No. It wasn't age. That was different. It was strength.

With a heavy sigh he walked through to the kitchen. There on the table were Alex's toast crumbs from a week earlier with two extremely cold and slightly solidified cups of coffee beside them. It made his heart sink all over again. Kim had been absolutely right. One hundred percent correct. He'd become far too attached to Alex. Now she was gone, he missed her terribly.

He began to clear away the cups and plate from the table when a knock came at the door. That startled him a little. Very few people knocked. In fact, knocking usually led to trouble.

_Alex _knocked, he recalled.

He closed his eyes for a second then made his way through the hall and opened the door just a little. The face at the door was so unexpected that he almost fell backwards in surprise.

"Molly?" he looked around a little nervously, "Where's Evan? He's not here is he?"

Despite his bravado the day before Robin still felt somewhat daunted by Evan and didn't like the idea of him waiting downstairs somewhere.

Molly shook her head.

"I'm not staying with Evan now," she said with a deep sadness.

Robin bit his lip.

"Oh," he said quietly, "sorry."

"I'm staying with my friend Tina," she said, "Her mum drove me over."

Robin gave a feeble smile.

"Oh," he said again.

"Evan's been arrested," Molly said quietly, "they said he's been fantasizing with a criminal."

"Fraternising," Robin corrected, "At least, I hope that's what you mean."

Molly looked a little awkward.

"Can I come in?" she asked.

Robin hesitated. He wasn't sure whether it was right to let her in or not.

"Uh," he began awkwardly, "didn't you get the lecture about strange men with sweets and stuff like that?"

"You're not strange and you haven't got any sweets," said Molly.

Robin bit his lip. Both those things were true.

"You'd better come in then," he said quietly.

He stepped back and let her walk through. She moved slowly to the kitchen and sat at the table. It made Robin feel a little strange. She was growing into the spit of her mother and it gave him a strange echo of the week before.

"Do you want anything?" he asked, "a drink? Something to eat?"

Molly shook her head.

"Just some answers," she said quietly.

Robin felt anxious now.

"Sounds serious," he said quietly.

Molly looked at him as he sat down beside her. Her nervous lip-chewing echoed his. She absently picked up a spoon from the table and began to play with it.

"Robin, who's Gene?"

In that moment it felt to Robin like the world stopped turning so suddenly that the jolt almost knocked him from his feet. He stared at her and gulped. He was sure she heard it. He faltered, he struggled for words and he tried several times to speak but he couldn't seem to force the words out. Eventually he cleared his throat and said awkwardly,

"Gene? Gene who?"

"Whoever it is mum kept asking for," said Molly. She looked at Robin. He wasn't saying anything. That didn't matter – his expression said everything. "When she woke up she kept asking for Gene," she continued, her voice wavering slightly, "and we thought she meant her clothes. Then Evan thought she meant Jean Spencer, mum used to work with her, but she hadn't seen her in years."

"Uh," Robin's lips felt very dry suddenly. He tried to moisten them as he bit ferociously on his top one.

"But she talked about it like Gene was a man," Molly continued, "always asked _'where is he?_'."

"Molly, I don't know…" Robin began.

"And then I saw the tattoo," Molly said quietly.

Robin cleared his throat.

"Tattoo?"

"Don't play dumb, you told Evan it was there," Molly told him crossly.

Robin's eyes turned downward. What the hell was he supposed to say to her?

"Molly," he began quietly, "I'm really sorry about your mum and the accident. She –"

"She wasn't herself ever since she woke up," Molly interrupted. There were tears in her eyes now but she wasn't letting them fall. She looked at him very seriously. She was sick of being treated like a bloody idiot. There had been lies and secrets and somehow two things had been forgotten – the truth, and her. She needed answers. "She wasn't the same. she never hugged me, didn't behave like my mum. Sometimes she said I wasn't her daughter and Evan just kept saying she was confused and she'd be OK."

"She'd been in a coma for a long time…" Robin began but Molly wasn't going to listen to more excuses and lies.

"She said all these names that we didn't know," she said, "Gene… she said that a lot. Kim? That was another one. She talked about Simon too though…" she took a deep breath. "The day she disappeared she used Evan's laptop and I looked at his history. She'd been looking for Simon's name, and hers." She paused. "And someone called Gene Hunt. That's what the G means on the tattoo. Isn't it?"

Robin stared at her.

"You should consider a career in the police force," he said weakly but she wasn't in the mood for jokes.

"Who is he?"

Robin swallowed. This was worse than the lion taming days, trapped between two small cupboards with a big fucking lion prowling around and the ringmaster saying, _"Mister Thomas, I thought you said you'd done this before…"_

"I don't know," he lied weakly.

"But Simon did," said Molly.

Robin's brow furrowed. This had come so much out of the blue.

"What?"

Molly closed her eyes for a moment. She remembered the first time she met Simon. She had no idea who he was, just a strange man who bought her a smiley biscuit. She supposed maybe she did need that lecture about the strange men offering sweets after all.

"When Evan invited you both round late in the summer, she said, "the barbecue."

Robin vaguely recalled a slightly disastrous barbecue at Evan's. It had resulted in a singed beard, grass stains and food poisoning.

"Yeah?" he frowned.

"Simon helped me with my creative writing project," she said, "I couldn't think of a name for my character."

Robin blinked.

"He suggested…"

"Gene Hunt," Molly said quietly.

Robin looked down. This was all becoming a little too difficult to step back from.

"Molly," he began quietly, "some things aren't easy to explain."

"My_ life_ isn't easy," Molly countered, "look, I don't have much to hold onto. My mum is unconscious again, she spent the time she was awake saying I didn't exist and running away with you." She watched him look down. "I just want to know who he is."

Robin swallowed. He took a deep breath. It was like with the lions. He had to come out of hiding eventually. And Molly had fewer teeth.

"Gene Hunt," he began, his voice shaking, "is someone your mother loves very much. And he's a long way away. She missed him terribly."

"But she didn't miss me?"

Robin flinched.

"I didn't say that…"

"She didn't even _know_ me," Molly said quietly. She watched Robin's eyes starting to glisten. She knew that there was something going on. Something bigger than he could tell her. "That… wasn't my mum," her voice broke and almost broke Robin's heart in the process, "it wasn't amnesia, it wasn't confusion, that wasn't my mum." She bit her lip and looked at him. "I heard you sometimes. Talking to her in hospital when she was in her coma."

Robin swallowed.

"What do you mean?" he whispered.

"You were talking like you'd been inside her head," Molly whispered, "and Evan just kept saying we should ignore you because of what you'd been through, but," she shook her head slowly, "I remember Simon saying things too…"

Robin's face started to crumble. Was he crying? Shit, not bloody tears, He felt like he was one big tear factory these days.

"It's so hard to explain," he whispered.

Molly's own eyes began to leak.

"Can you tell me one thing?" she whispered. She stared at Robin as he looked at her. "Is she happy?" 

She knew from the look on his face that she'd tapped into something.

"Molly," he whispered, "she… I hope so."

Molly tried to bite back her tears.

"Where is she?"

Robin's eyes met hers, just for a split second. His mouth protested but her eyes told her that there was something in her question.

"She's in hospital, Molly, you know that."

Molly shook her head.

"Where were _you?"_ she asked, "after your accident?"

"I was –"

"Don't say in the hospital," Molly pointed accusingly.

Robin bit his lip. He looked down.

"What else can I say?" he asked quietly, "what can I say that will make you feel any better? It's not going to help your mum get better. It's not going to bring her back to you or bring her out of her coma."

Molly hesitated. She stared at him.

"No," she whispered, "it won't." she shook her head. "But at least I'll know."

Robin swallowed hard and tried to calm himself down. He looked at Molly seriously.

"Sometimes it's better not to know," he said.

Molly stared at him. She couldn't agree with that. She really couldn't. But his silence and evasiveness told her as much as words could.

"Thanks, Robin," she said quietly. She stood up slowly and Robin got to his feet hurriedly.

"W-what for?" he asked.

Molly gave him a weak smile.

"Because now I know" she sad quietly.

"Know what?"

Molly took a deep breath.

"That, at least she's happy," she said quietly. She turned around. "I'd better go now. Tina's mum will be getting worried."

Robin bit his lip as he walked behind her through the hall and opened the front door to let her through. He looked at her seriously. He felt as though his heart was breaking.

"Maybe one day," he said quietly, "you can know for sure."

Molly nodded slowly.

"Thank you for looking after her," she said, then she turned and left his flat before she could start crying all over again.

Robin felt a terrible pang of guilt as he watched her go. The truth was a hard cross to bear. Finally, just as she disappeared out of sight, he yelled her name. There was a second, a moment, a beat of silence and finally her head turned around.

"What?"

Robin choked back a sob.

"Yes," he whispered, "She's happy. She loves you and she'll never stop missing you. But she's happy."

Molly stared at him for a long time. Then, with a flicker of a smile, she nodded, bowed her head and walked away.

~xXx~

Kim was tired of television and magazines. She didn't 'do' hospitals very well. A lengthy visit from her wife and sons had distracted her greatly but now they were gone she had only the TV for company.

"Oh great; _Doctors,_" she mumbled, "Home away from home."

She had never been so glad to see a door open and someone arrive before.

"Hello," a slightly sheepish face arrived.

Kim smiled.

"Robin, thank god for that, my brain is melting piece by piece!" she said, her voice still weak and strained.

Robin sat next to her and pulled up a large carrier bag onto the bed.

"I brought you some grapes," he said, holding up a bunch.

"Robin, you're such a cliché," Kim scolded, laughing a little.

"I thought you'd say something like that," said Robin, "so I also brought –"

He pulled a container out of the bag with two slices of home made pizza inside. After Molly's visit that morning his head had been in such a spin that he'd gone on a cooking frenzy to take his mind off things. Unfortunately that meant everyone Robin knew was going to find pizza posted through their letterbox or on their driveway as he tried to find homes for them all.

"Pizza!" Kim's delight was easy to see, "just make sure you hide this from the whole fuddy-duddy, nil-by-mouth crew around here." She paused. "They can't smell it, can they?"

"My dear, that is what airtight containers were made for," Robin said pompously.

Kim gave a gentle laugh then looked at him seriously.

"That was quite something, wasn't it?"

"My pizza?"

"Our adventure."

Robin nodded.

"I'm finding it hard to adjust," he said quietly, "getting back to real life. Out of the bubble."

Kim nodded slowly.

"I'm not sure we ever will," she said quietly.

Robin looked at her.

"How did your wife react?" he asked quietly.

Kim sighed deeply.

"She's been frantic," she said quietly, "I don't think she's going to forgive this very easily. I think it's going to take many, many flowers and hundreds of hours of free tattlooing."

Robin gave a tiny smile.

"You'll get there," he said quietly.

Kim nodded.

"I hope so," she said quietly. She gave a deep sigh. "God, Robin. This has put me in a spin. It's got me thinking about things I'd put behind me. My life."

"What do you mean?"

Kim seemed a little edgy.

"I changed everything, Robin. My whole life. My name, my career – all to get away from Keats. And it worked – and I'm safe now." She shook her head slowly. "But he's still taking things from me, even though he's been long dead, because I'm still not living my life." She looked at him seriously. "All we've been through. Layton. Putting the clues together. The roof. It's made me think about how much I miss working on the force." She scratched her head a little. "I'm thinking about going back. Maybe part time… Not sure I want to give up the tattooing yet…"

Robin's eyes lit up.

"Kim, that's great," he said brightly, "I was just thinking how your skills have been wasted since you left."

"I've still got the fire in me," she said quietly, "I thought I'd lost it. I thought he'd taken it away." She paused. "Turns out it was me letting him keep that from me." She shook her head. "Not any more."

Robin looked at her steely expression, the determination she'd found to take back the parts of her life that one evil man had taken so long about. He found that inspiring.

"What would you do? I mean, how do you go about it? Do you have to go back to square one or…?"

Kim shook her head a little.

"I've no idea," she said, "I've got so much to work out. But at least I'm on the right track."

Robin nodded slowly as he looked at her. Although her body was pale and drained there was a sparkle in her eyes. He hadn't seen that before.

"Perhaps then some good has come out of all of this," he said with a tiny smile. He thought about his conversation with the Superintendent the day before. He wasn't ready to count his chickens yet just in case things went wrong, but he was starting to feel a little more confidence in himself too. Things were moving on. Things were changing.

"I should leave you in peace," he said quietly, "have some quality time with your pizza." He got to his feet. "I'll see you soon. Maybe you can help me with those emotional tangles next time."

Kim laughed and gave him a weak smile as he left.

"Bye, Robin," she said quietly.

She closed her eyes as he disappeared from her hospital room and gave a little sigh, For the first time she felt a little sense of contentment settling upon her. Something that had been missing for almost a decade. Ever since she'd woken up eight years ago she'd been missing a part of herself. It had taken many years and another brush with death to bring that back, but she was starting to feel like herself again. Like her old self. Like _Kim._

She could feel herself drifting towards sleep once more. She knew there would probably be nightmares of guns, Layton and Evan's beard but they couldn't hurt her. Nothing could touch her, not any more. She'd found herself again, and that was the greatest prize of all.


	79. Chapter 40, 1995: Marziale

_**A/N: the second chapter tonight!**_

**Chapter Forty: 1995**

Simon hated to admit how much he was worrying about Gene.

It started when he'd been thrown out of Kim's hospital room.

"I knew I should have bought the bigger box of chocolates," he mumbled.

He'd tried to find him for a long time but he wasn't in Alex's room, he wasn't in the canteen and he wasn't threatening people in the gift shop. He tried CID but there was no sign of him. He tried both his own flat and Alex's but both were empty. He even tried Latte Land but they told him they were in serious danger of going bankrupt because they Gene hadn't been in for his afternoon latte order yet.

With a sigh of defeat he went back to the station. He had to be _somewhere._ He had to be. He couldn't have disappeared just like that.

As his eyes scanned the office, a hint of an idea came to him. It wasn't one he wanted to think about but it seemed to develop more credence the more he contemplated the idea.

"Oh no, no, _no,_ Gene, you can't be –"

He closed his eyes for a moment. He didn't want to go down there again. Not for anything. But he couldn't ignore his worries and knew he had no choice. It was time to go underground.

~xXx~

"Gene?"

Gene barely reacted to Simon's voice as he called down the staircase. He lifted his bottle, took a swig of scotch, sat the bottle back in the floor and stared at the page in front of him. The words were swimming a little now, but not enough. Not enough to block them out or make them illegible. Not enough to stop him from being able to read them. Not enough to take them away.

He heard footsteps coming closer and finally a pair of shoes appeared beside him. He couldn't face looking up. He didn't want to see pity on Simon's face. Instead he stared at the paragraph before him and, with a hint of a slur in his voice, he read aloud;

"…_And the moment she said his name; the name of that mollusc, the name of that relic from times gone by… The moment she said his name I knew he'd corrupted her too and put himself in her head. Well, I've done the same now. Word for word I told her what she would see. When she thinks of tonight, she won't remember him, or the moment I pushed her to the ground and turned my back on her. She will remember something different. She will remember the passion that I've had inside my head for so long. I've given her that now, that's my gift to her. I gave her my dreams and my fantasies. Now she will believe them, and soon they will be real."_ Finally his eyes travelled up and he looked Simon in the eye. "He gave 'er that as a gift," he said grimly, "…and_ I_ thought the threat of getting one of yer jumpers was going to be a bad present."

"Gene, what are you doing down here?" Simon asked.

"Drinking," said Gene, "and catching up on some light reading."

Simon shook his head slowly and sank to the floor beside him. Gene cut a lonely picture, sitting on the ground, surrounded by paper and half a bottle of scotch.

"I don't think you should read any more," he said quietly.

"Already been down here two hours," Gene told him, "can't unread it all."

Simon sighed and leaned back against the wall. At least when he was the only one who'd read the files he could filter the information. Now Gene had received unfiltered access to everything.

"I'm sorry," he said quietly.

Gene picked up another page, one he'd left to one side.

"_In all the places I've been, never have I met an individual who has tainted the name of his station quite so much as Gene Hunt at Fenchurch East,"_ he read aloud, _"the coppers have grown stale, clinging to his apron strings, and he won't let them go. He wanted to be their teacher and their daddy, wiping their noses and sending them to school before giving them the cane if they look at him with less than one hundred percent respect. Well __**I **__have no respect for you, Gene Hunt. You or your crusty station. The walls are crumbling around you, my friend."_

Simon shook his head slowly.

"Forget this, Gene," he said quietly, "forget about all of this. It's not important. It's insane writing from a crazy man."

"But it's not though, is it?" Gene said grimly, "it's all come from me. Because I'm not a bloody robot." He took a long swig of scotch, so long that he had to gasp a little afterwards to get his breath back. "I might as well go to the pub for all the good I'm doing here."

"Don't say that."

"If I'm making enough o' the evils to give him the sinful horn then it's not worth the trouble," Gene said, "I'll get me arse to the Railway Arms, Jimbo shrivels like the wicked witch and it's all over."

"Yeah, except that's not what would happen," said Simon, "is it? Because Alex is just the same as you. And me. And even if we all went to the pub, which," he pulled a face, "isn't my _personal _idea of heaven, then Jimbo wouldn't just die. He's _become_ that evil energy now, Gene. He might not absorb any more from you but it doesn't take away what he's already got." He sighed deeply. "He'll probably end up creating an opposite 'good' energy of his own and some other poor blighter doing your job will absorb _that_ and then whole cycle begins again."

Gene looked down. He could see what Simon meant.

"Alright," he said, "I'll give you that one."

He was vaguely aware of Simon taking the bottle from him.

"This is for your own good," he said, putting it out of Gene's reach.

"You gonna swallow that as well?" Gene mumbled.

Simon ignored that.

"This is why I didn't want you to know about all of this," he said quietly, "I knew what it would do to you."

Gene stared around the hot basement, his eyes scanning the walls as though looking for something to change or to give him a way out of the horrible truth that Simon had uncovered.

"He used to pull my team down here," he said quietly, "question them about me. About this station. Try to get every single mistake out of them. Anything not by the book. If there was a full stop missing in a report not only would be find it he'd photocopy the mistake in triplicate and make me sign every one off." He reached into his pocket and pulled out his flask, raising a frown from Simon. "You forgot about this one, didn't you?" he said, "see, that's that you call initiative."

Simon let out a deep sigh as he watched Gene drinking again. He didn't have the heart to take another one away from him so he leaned back and hoped it was almost empty already. Knowing Gene it probably was.

"Keats has a bad soul," he said quietly, "if it wasn't you then it would have been something else that corrupted him."

Gene shook his head.

"You read the files, Simon," he said, "no one else like me. I'm a one off." He swigged again, "they broke the mould when they made the Gene Genie." He looked away. "and then I cracked Jimbo's brain."

"Maybe not in the same way but _something_ would still have corrupted him," said Simon, "He was a bitter and twisted man who had a shitty lot. He'd been let down by his superior officer at home, then despite working hard every single day and working up to the same rank as you he was a bloody pen pusher! All he ever wanted was to be like you." He shook his head and looked down. "He still does." He found himself drawn to Gene's scotch and began to drink a little from the bottle. What was happening to him? He was doing this more and more. He didn't even like it. He didn't like the taste, nor the effects. He pulled a face and put the bottle down again. "Even if it didn't happen here then it would have happened somewhere. Maybe he'd have gone home and started taking bribes, or he'd have become mixed up with some other DCI in another part of this world whose own intentions left much to be desired and decided to model himself after them instead. He's Keats. He had to _want_ to take that energy on to become the way he is now. It doesn't matter where the energy came from, he _wanted_ to take it."

Gene stared at the wall.

"But he's always going to be lurking around the corner," he said darkly, "slurping up the bad stuff like a bloody metaphysical milkshake."

"Yeah and we're always going to be lurking around the corner, waiting to kick his metaphysical backside," said Simon.

Gene took a swig from his flask, rescrewed the lid, sat it down beside him and opened up the file again. He skipped on a few pages and read another paragraph to Simon.

"_Another one tonight. This one was so easy to take. The fear in his eyes was a blissful sight. It set me ablaze. Funny, really, because that's what is happening to him as I write this."_ He looked up at Simon, his face pale and anguished. "Viv James was a good man," he said, "and Keats…" he looked for a moment as though he might be about to smash something or punch a hole in the wall. "Keats took more than his soul. He took something away from Fenchurch East. He took a big piece of my world."

Simon shook his head slowly. He hadn't read that part.

"What a horrible thing to do," he whispered.

Gene skipped on a few more pages and read again.

"_Why hasn't she responded to me? Did my words fall on deaf ears? I spoke to her heart and her mind. I planted the seeds of lust and they should have grown thick and strong by now. Every time I see her it makes me burn with fury, knowing that Hunt is inside her head. At least he's not inside her elsewhere." _His face contorted into a look of utter fury. He thought about ripping up the file but he couldn't find the strength. He felt empty and vacant.

"Gene, stop reading that stuff," Simon said quietly, "it's only going to make things worse.

"Don't see how," mumbled Gene. He noticed Simon drinking again from the bottle but didn't pass comment. Who was he to judge after all? He turned a few more pages and read again. _"The time is closer now. I am leading her right to his feet. She will soon see him for what he is, a skeleton, just like all of those he hangs in his closet."_ He shook his head despondently.

"I told you to stop reading that," said Simon. He hiccupped and put the bottle down with a sigh.

Gene turned another page.

"_Such beauty I have never seen before,_" he read aloud, "_I only have to see those eyes and I melt._"

"Gene, stop reading," Simon mumbled again.

"_And that voice – it is like an angel's,"_ he continued, "_I only need to hear the opening bars and I…"_ he paused and frowned, _"and I can feel my heart ablaze. Oh Mister Ridgeley, why are you so far away? And why did you take out that restraining order on me? I only wanted to drink from your Club Tropicana…"_

Gene's cheeks billowed as he gulped back the threat of vomit and Simon scrambled backwards in absolute revulsion. He grabbed for the bottle and downed enough to take the edge off of the horror that had unfolded from the file.

"Oh my god!" he cried, "Gene please, _please_ stop reading!"

Gene took several deep breaths.

"I'll be lucky if I ever get the guts to read anything again," he mumbled.

"He is a sick, sick individual," Simon gagged.

"I thought the autograph was as bad as it got," Gene mumbled. He flicked through the rest of the file, _"Ridgeley, Ridgeley… more Ridgeley…"_

"Please, please put that file away," Simon begged, "No more. My stomach can't take it and the nearest toilet is two floors away!"

"At least we might get that key back," said Gene. He tossed the file to the ground and turned to Simon. For the first time since he'd arrived in the basement he looked him in the eye without turning away again a moment later. "So. What now?" he asked.

"Well, first I'm going to get the diarrhoea tablets and some mental bleach," said Simon.

Gene sighed.

"You know what I mean, Shoebury. Keats. Alex. _Everything."_

Simon looked down and could only shake his head.

"I wish I had answers for you," he said, "but I don't."

Gene drank the last of the scotch from his flask. He put it back in his pocket and rubbed his face roughly.

"That tape," he said, "Him. And her." He closed his eyes. "You know, I can finally understand you and the tape of doom Jimbo let you have on an extended rental. Now I know why you can't forget," he swiped the bottle back from Simon, "even when you've forgiven." He noticed Simon looked away awkwardly.

"I'm sorry," he said quietly, "I know that's not you anymore. But it's really hard to forget."

Gene nodded.

"I get it now," he said, "Pictures stay in yer head."

"You have to stop thinking about her and Keats," said Simon, "put it out your mind. It wasn't her."

"But it _was_ her. Physically." Gene sipped some more scotch, then mumbled, "I have a hard enough time looking at _you_ without seeing 'im fiddling with yer nips."

"My bloody nipples _again!"_ Simon cried, "give me that damn scotch," he snatched it from Gene who looked annoyed but just about let him get away with it.

"All I need now is for a _Kim 'N' Jim_ porno to turn up and I'll have the full set," he said. He began to feel a little woozy. Even Gene had his maximum scotch saturation point and he was fast reaching it. Much more and he'd be spewing in the bin, cosying up to a filing cabinet and crooning a rousing chorus of _One Hand In my Pocket_ to Simon with an interesting selection of alternative lyrics.

"Keats is sneaky," Simon said quietly as he drank from the bottle again. His scotch saturation point was considerably lower than Gene's but his swimming head and churning stomach showed he was almost there. "He gets this hold on people."

"Yeah, usually around their hips while he'd sticking one in them," said Gene.

Simon put the bottle down. He wasn't feeling too good. He decided his was probably a good time to stop drinking.

"It's what he does," he mumbled, sliding down a little against the wall, "he gets in your head. Makes you think stuff."

"He makes me think about hiring a bloody hitman," mumbled Gene.

Simon glanced around.

"Hey – _there's_ my jumper!" he cried.

Gene gave a desperate groan.

"Just when I thought me day couldn't get any worse," he mumbled.

It was approximately thirty seconds later when Gene passed out from an abundance of alcohol and another two minutes before Simon collapsed in a heap beside him, papers for a pillow and jumper for a duvet. Somehow now the secrets had been revealed some of the heat had been taken out of the basement, as though Keats's hold upon the space below stairs had faded too.

It was just a shame that lives, hearts, souls and minds were not as easy to recover from the evil man.


	80. Chapter 41, 2011: Alla Marcia

_**A/N: Yes, my muse is still under threat of sectioning from Evan so we're on the run at the moment and writing like crazy. 2 chapters tonight, probably 2 tomorrow as well! **_

_**Tomorrow will see the last 2011 chapter for a while as we will be spending Christmas in 1995 for a few days after that!**_

**Chapter Forty One: 2011**

Getting dressed for work was a fairly alien concept for Robin. It had been months… Months since the accident and a lengthy period of sick leave, then suspension while he awaited trial, then a week's compassionate leave and finally another week to recover from his latest accident. He'd almost forgotten what he looked like in the uniform. He wondered what insignia he'd be wearing by the end of the day.

He fastened his new watch around his wrist, a present from his colleagues in the dog unit. It was more or less a _'we're glad you didn't get yourself killed, twice, on the same bit of road'_ present, then, finishing his last mouthful of tea, he dashed out of the door and down to his brand new car. A new car which, he had to say, he still wasn't sure how he was going to pay for. But since his previous one was only good for entering into the Turner prize under the title '_Pile Of Burnt Metal That Will Not Be Driving Anywhere'_ it was a necessity.

He felt nervous as he drove to work. It had been such a long time since he'd last been there and he wasn't even sure what he was going to find when he arrived. He need not have worried too much though – as he walked through the doors he was greeted with smiles and waves, pats on the back and even a couple of hugs. He smiled a little nervously with every step he took through the building. He was deeply aware that the last time he had arrived at work it had been that fateful day; the day he would make that fateful journey with Simon, arrive in 1995 and lose the love of his life.

His heart began to sink now. He had managed to focus on the positives of the day right up to that point and now it he had started to think of the negatives. He sighed as he reached his locker and opened it to hang up his coat. Someone had posted some magazine adverts for razors through the vent on the door with a smiley face and a note saying,_ "You nailed the slimy bearded one good and proper! Nice one Rob!" _

It seemed the canine division of Fenchurch East were not, as a whole, terribly enamoured by Beard Model Evan White.

He reached the door of his office and found someone had made a cardboard sign and stuck upon it, emblazoned with the slogan; "_Robin The Beardy Slayer"_ featuring a photo of Robin's head with a cartoon body, holding a razor, a small picture of Evan dashing away at the far end of the sign.

"We catch a bloody criminal who's been on the run for two and a half years and all anyone cares about is the beardy one," Robin commented. Not that he could disagree with their general views on Evan. Not any more, anyway. Many interesting stories had come to light in the press over the last week including tasty headlines such as _"My Night of Stubble Hell with Shamed Beard Model", "Jail For Five-Times-A-Night Evan 'Beardy' White" _and _"Mister Whiskers Kept Going All Night Long!"_

That was to say nothing of three dozen phone calls he'd received from Channel 4 whose Dispatches team were making a follow up to their Keats documentary, this time entitled _Evan White, Where Did It All Go Wrong?_ Or, more commonly called, _Evan White: Did Anything Ever Go Right? Ever?_

The door to his office went a little funny as he tried to open it, jumping out of its bolt and swinging ajar before he had a chance to turn the handle, then slamming shut dangerously almost as soon as he passed through. He gave a gasp as it made him jump at least a foot in the air and wondered if he was about to need the defibrillator again but he managed to remain pretty much calm, considering.

He crossed to his desk where a huge pile of paperwork sat. He gave a sigh and sank into his seat.

"Nothing like a nice, easy first day back," he mumbled, taking a file from the top of the pile when there was a knock on the door and it opened to reveal the smiling face of Kelly.

"Hey, welcome back," she said.

Robin felt relief as he looked up to see her. He clung now to moments like that – anything connected with that strange week; seeing Kelly or Kim, visiting Alex, a mention of Layton, the clothes he was wearing, some of the food he cooked – it was familiar and safe. The rest of the world felt like a scarier place now.

"Kelly," he smiled, "I'm glad to see you. All I keep finding are things about Evan's beard."

"Well, he'd not exactly popular around here now the truth has come out," she said, "there are a lot of guys who'd modelled their own facial hair on him and have had to rethink their whole look. Apparently sales of Gillette razors have gone up by seventy percent in the last week.

Robin rubbed his eyes, a little overwhelmed by some of the bizarre attention the whole thing had received.

"Methinks people are looking at the wrong element of this picture," he commented.

"Well, as long as it means none of us got the sack then that's all that matters to me," Kelly pointed out.

"True," said Robin, "hey, have you been in to see Kim yet?"

Kelly bit her lip a little nervously and stepped back. She hadn't been to see her since her resuscitation attempt saved her life. She hadn't been able to face it. Some things were better left buried, she told herself again and again.

"No, not yet," she said quietly.

"She's being discharged today," Robin told her, "I was going to call by to see her tonight. If you wanted to come –"

"Oh Robin, I'm sorry, I've got drinks tonight," Kelly said with a half-hearted smile, "another time. But give her my best."

"I was thinking of doing a reunion meal," said Robin, "You know, the idiots on the run? Maybe in a couple of weeks. Me, you and Kim. What do you think?"

Kelly was fast running out of excuses and her head was starting to hurt.

"I don't know, Robin," she said quietly, "Maybe Kim won't want to rake this all up again."

"No, she's up for it," he said, "she wants to thank you for what you did."

Kelly closed her eyes for a moment. She couldn't think of another excuse, so reluctantly she said,

"Alright. That would be good. But there'd better be wine. And it had better be pizza."

Robin smiled.

"Done, and done," he said.

Kelly shuffled to the door and gave him a genuine smile.

"Good to see you back where you belong," she said quietly and left the room.

Robin found himself sighing as he watched her go. The room seemed very quiet suddenly. He felt very much alone, even more so than all those night spent in his flat since Simon died. He glanced behind him and looked out of the window at the cars coming and going in the car park. They looked like brightly coloured ants from where he sat. He must have been watching them for two or three minutes when there was a knock on the door and a young copper came nervously in.

"There's a package for you sir," he said.

Robin frowned.

"It's not more razors is it?" he asked. People had been posting them through his letterbox all week.

"No, sir," he said, "it's from the canine welfare people. It's something to do with one of the dogs."

Robin frowned. He had no idea what it could be.

"Thanks," he said quietly and started to open up the packaging as the young man disappeared down the corridor. It was with some horror that he realised he was looking at an urn. A very small, rather plain urn. "_Cassandra's ashes,"_ he said quietly. He wasn't sure whether to be flattered or offended that they'd been sent to him. He bit his lip, unsure whether he was about to cry or not. He'd managed not to so far. Cassandra's death had been the final straw when he'd awoken from his coma to find that Simon had died in the accident. When eventually he'd been told that Cassandra didn't survive the shooting he felt as though it was a cruel joke played by fate.

Just as he was working himself up to moving the ashes somewhere else his door opened for the third tome and the Superintendent came in with a professional smile.

"Ahh, Robin, good to see you back onside," he said.

Robin gave a slightly strained smile and prepared himself to lie.

"It's good to be back," he said. It wasn't. Not really. It would have been good to be back if he knew Simon was three floors and two corridors away. It would have been good to be back if he knew Cassandra would come and lie at his feet the moment she saw him. It would have been good to be back if there weren't little pictures of Evan's beard all over the place. Still, Hedges wasn't to know that.

"Would this be a good time for that talk?" he asked.

Robin took a deep breath and stood up.

"I don't see why not," he said, adding silently, _anything to take my mind off of finding an alternative spot for these bloody ashes._

The super nodded.

"Take a walk with me," he said.

Robin hesitated.

"Alright," he said.

He followed Hedges out of the door. The walk, it seemed, was going to take in as many corridors in the station as absolutely possible.

"How is your health now?" he asked.

Robin frowned.

"I'm sorry?"

"You had some problems after your accident."

"Oh," Robin waved his hand dismissively, "fine. The tests didn't show anything up." He neglected to mention that this was because he hadn't been for any of them.

"Good, glad to hear that," said Hedges.

He turned to Robin as they continued to walk and Robin started to wonder of the mammoth tour of Fenchurch East was supposed to be some kind of test of his health and stamina. He certainly hoped not. He was struggling a little as it was. He was out of practice. Too much sitting around at home and not enough running up and down stairs all day. Maybe a few too many home cooked delights too.

"I'll get straight to the point," he said.

"Oh good," Robin couldn't hold back his comment as Hedges marched him up and down a couple of staircases.

"I won't pretend your work tracking Layton was… _conventional,"_ Hedges began, "and if you had done things out in the open then we'd have all wasted a lot less time and seen a lot less of Mister White and his beard on national television."

Robin hung his head.

"Sorry, Sir," he said quietly.

"But," the Super continued, "this unit has been receiving the highest approval for finally finding Arthur Layton and your name is coming up time and again. Not just because of this but from your excellent work through the years."

Robin bit his lip.

"But Sir," he began quietly, "the charges…"

"From which you were completely exonerated and free from blame," the Super reminded him.

Robin knew that, but he couldn't help fearing the old phrase – _mud sticks._

"I've been concerned how that would affect my career," he said quietly.

"Well, so were we," said Hedges, "we've had you lined up for bigger things, Robin. But only now has there been a post that's got your name all over it. Chief Inspector, the canine division will come under your remit, but your duties extend far beyond. You'll be liaising with other departments, co-ordinating where best to use your man power…_dog_ power…" he frowned, "_resources_. There will be a great deal to discuss; your links with other stations, decisions you'll be involved with but – theoretically – are you still interested?"

Hedges finally came to a halt and with some relief Robin was able to stop walking for a moment. He turned to him and saw a look of sincerity on his face.

"Yes, Sir," he said. He felt himself beginning to smile a little, despite doing his best to keep a neutral face, "I am."

Hedges nodded.

"Good," he said. He led his hand out to shake on the matter. "Glad to see you making the steps you deserve, Chief Inspector."

Robin felt his lip twitch up again. He wasn't used to this, he really wasn't. In the past his promotions had come through rounds of interviews and hard graft. To be head-hunted meant so much to him. The one aspect that made his heart sink was knowing that he couldn't share his promotion with Simon. That felt like a boulder in his chest to hamper the good news.

"Thank you, Sir," he said quietly as he shook his hand. He only began to realise then that their elongated walk had brought them back to the door of Robin's office. They must have done at least one lap of the station. No wonder he was exhausted.

"Excellent," Hedges smiled, "I will have the paperwork drawn up immediately and we'll begin looking for your replacement." He gave a nod. "Have a good first day back."

Robin nodded back with a slightly shy smile. His good news had given him a boost of confidence that he truly needed and buoyed his spirits. He took a deep breath and turned his eyes upwards. He only wished that Simon had been there to see.

Turning the handle, his office door took a flying leap open again.

"I need to get this looked at," he mumbled as he stepped inside. Before he cleared the space the door swung closed again, jamming his wrist between the door and the frame. _"Yeoowwwwww!"_ he screamed, "Shit! Shit!" _Shit!"_

As the door casually opened up again to set his painful wrist free a few officers ran to see what the problem was.

"Are you OK?" Kelly was amongst them.

"Well I _was!"_ cried Robin, "then my fucking door developed a mind of its own and slammed shut on my wrist!" he stared at it, It was already swelling up and his brand new watch was cracked across the face. "Oh bloody hell, not that too," he gave a sad sigh.

"I hope they took out insurance on that," Kelly said a little anxiously.

"Never mind the watch, what about my bloody wrist?" cried Robin.

Kelly sighed.

"That does look nasty," she said, "come on, I'll drive you to hospital."

"No, no, not the bloody hospital, they'll only yell at me for not getting those tests done," Robin whined."

"Be a big boy and grow a pair," Kelly told him, "come on."

Feeling like one of the dogs being let to the vet for worming he hung his head, cradled his wrist and followed Kelly out of the corridor. It was a day of ups and downs, he decided – and not just up and down the stairs. He just hoped that this was the last 'down' he would encounter. He'd lost enough watches for one week.


	81. Chapter 41, 1995: Con Spirito

_**A/N: The second of 2 chapters tonight!**_

**Chapter Forty One: 1995**

There was a horrible, _horrible_ banging coming from somewhere along with what felt like a mouthful of sand. Then there was a hand shaking his shoulder fairly vigorously but he was just about able to ignore that. A moment later, something started pulling on his leg and with a groan and a flap of his hand he tried to push them away.

"_Not now Robin, we'll save that for later_," he mumbled.

The next thing he knew there was a hand around his collar pulling him to his feet and suddenly he was very wide awake indeed.

"Wake up, Shoebury, and stop calling me Batman," Gene pushed him against the wall before letting him go. He spluttered and choked a little and pulled the top of his shirt away from his neck.

"What the hell are you doing?" he cried.

"It's half past nine," Gene mumbled, "we've been down here all night."

"_What?"_ Simon looked around, "Oh great, still in the bloody basement." He held his head. "I think I have a slight migraine coming on…"

"You have a raging bloody hangover," Gene said loudly into his ear, "which is what happens when you keep drinking all my bloody scotch and never buy your own."

Simon backed away a little and clutched his head a little more tightly.

"Can you not do that?" he begged, "there's something rattling about in my head." He paused. "Besides, why would I buy scotch when I don't drink?"

Gene gave a mocking laugh.

"Shoebury, if I looked up 'teetotal' in the dictionary I would find a picture if you and the new description would say '_Man who pretends he doesn't drink so he can take everyone else's alcohol without ever buying 'is own.'"_

Simon hung his pounding head.

"I never used to drink," he said, "ever."

"Well if you've decided to start then you need to get better at it, can't have you passing out after two sips of scotch," Gene told him, throwing his jumper at his head, "get moving Shoebury."

"Why? Where are we going?" Simon mumbled, "…and I thought I already was moving?"

"That's yer brain sloshing back and forth," said Gene.

He began to thump up the stairs with Simon trailing behind, every step echoing and reverberating around his hollow head.

"You drank a reservoir of that stuff, how come your head isn't cracking open when you move?" he mumbled.

"Two things, Simon," Gene began, "number one, I'm a dedicated sportsman and I've been putting in years of practice at the art of Olympic drinking. And secondly," he pulled his newly refilled flask from his pocket, "have you never heard of hair of the dog?"

Simon frowned. Not only did he not like scotch but he didn't like dogs either and any turn of phrase that combined the two was not going to win favour with him.

"Where are we going?" he asked.

"Bloody hospital, where d'you think?" Gene told him, marching him through the corridor.

"Why?"

Gene turned to him, a little annoyed.

"We've been in Jimbo's bloody house of doom all night," he cried, "anything could have happened. Alex could be awake and dancing on the ceiling by now."

The thought of dancing on the ceiling made Simon's head spin and he swallowed hard.

"I don't feel well," he mumbled.

"You'll be feeling a damn sight worse if you don't move yer arse," said Gene," get in the car."

Simon wasn't sure the car was a very good idea.

"Don't think my stomach can handle it," he said, looking a little green.

"It's that, or I'm tying you to the roof rack," said Gene.

"You haven't got a roof rack," Simon mumbled.

Gene looked at him.

"That reminds me," he said, "You and me still need to have a _chat_ about unauthorised use of handcuffs. Don't we?"

Simon gulped. He was hoping Gene had forgotten about that.

"Uh, I'll just get in the car," he said meekly and fulfilled his promise.

Gene climbed in the driver's seat with a nod.

"Good man," he said.

~xXx~

The drive to hospital wasn't pleasant for either party. Simon's head was banging out a lovely rhythm while Gene spent every turning fearing that a Shoebury-related stain of epic proportions was about to emerge in his beloved car. Thankfully they soon arrived at the hospital with no incidents to speak of and Gene quickly accosted a doctor.

Simon hung back a little at a safe distance from which he couldn't be undermined, insulted or thrown out by medical staff. He rubbed his throbbing temples. Gene started to walk back to him looking grim and disheartened.

"No change," he said quietly.

"No change?" Simon reached into his pocket, "Hang on, I've got a few pound coins…"

"Get yer brain out yer backside and stop being a twat," Gene warned, "no change in her _condition."_

Simon looked down.

"Sorry, Guv," he said quietly.

Gene looked a little awkward.

"Look, will you," he cleared his throat, "go make yerself scarce? I want to see her on me own."

Simon nodded slowly.

"Sure," he said quietly. He looked around. "Uh, this is a hospital, right?"

Gene stared at him.

"I knew they made you DCI for some reason," he said.

"I mean, they'll have painkillers around here, right? Stuff for headaches? Stomach medication? Black coffee?"

Gene rolled his eyes and walked away.

"If you change yer mind about the hair of the dog, you know where I am," he called behind him.

Simon sighed and tried to rub some of the bleariness out of his eyes. He wished he could remember why he'd even taken the bottle in the first place, let alone taken a drink from it. He knew his behaviour was going downhill since arriving in Gene's world and being separated from Robin but he didn't know how to fix it.

He decided to visit Kim and perhaps take his mind off of the chronic thumping in his head. There seemed to be fewer medical types to avoid this time, perhaps because he looked in such a state they just assumed he was a patient and let him go by. Before long he arrived at the door to her room. The first thing he noticed was that Kim was awake and looking far more lucid than the previous day.

"Hey," he said with as much of a smile as he could manage without his head splitting down the middle, "you're awake."

Kim gave a tired and slightly pained smile as he walked across to her.

"Barely," she said quietly, "they keep taking my temperature every half hour, I've hardly had any sleep.

"Sorry," said Simon. He sat down beside her. "How are you feeling?"

Kim frowned.

"Probably not as bad as you," she said, "you look awful." She wrinkled up her nose, "Ugh! Simon, and you stink!"

Simon's face fell.

"Thanks a lot!"

"You've got breath that could cut through girders!" she told him, "no wonder you look like hell. You're not used to hangovers, are you?"

Simon pulled a face.

"Who says I've been drinking?" he asked.

"The fact my face is melting from the smell," said Kim, "you've been on his scotch again, haven't you?"

Simon looked away, a little ashamed.

"It was just a hard day yesterday," he said quietly, "And I didn't drink that much…" he dropped his voice, "I passed out before I had a chance."

"You're not very good at drinking, are you?" Kim commented.

"Thanks for pointing out the obvious."

"Why did you start anyway?" asked Kim, "you never used to. You told me you were teetotal!"

"Things change," Simon mumbled, wishing he hadn't left his jumper in Gene's car.

"You're not doing it to impress Gene are you?" asked Kim. Simon gave a noise of disapproval at her comment but she noticed he blushed a little, "Oh God, Simon, you're_ not_ are you?" she sighed, "First of all, you obvious don't even like it –"

"Who says?"

"You, spluttering and gagging every time you have any!" said Kim, "Look, when I get out of here, I'll teach you how to drink."

Simon pulled a face as he noticed her laughing a little.

"I seem to be managing on my own," he daid.

"Forget Gene's scotch," Kim advised him, "try lager."

"Why would I want to try lager?"

"Well because, A, it lasts longer, B, it tastes better, C, you can drink more before you fall over and, D, it's cheaper."

Simon sighed.

"_A,"_ he began, "why would I want it to last longer when I hate the taste of alcohol? B, it tastes of burnt bread. C, I do _not _'fall over', and D, it doesn't cost me anything, I just drink Gene's." he paused and looked at Kim. Seeing her smile and joke brought him a huge sense of relief. He closed his eyes for a second. "God, Kim," he whispered, "I'm so sorry."

Kim looked at him a little curiously.

"Why?" she frowned, "what did you do? Oh, you've not bought me one of those jumpers have you…?"

Simon looked at her awkwardly.

"That bullet was meant for me," he said quietly.

Kim looked a little pained.

"I… I don't really remember what happened," she said quietly, "it's all so hazy."

"Keats," Simon said darkly, "he fired at me, but it," he flinched at the memory, "went right through. And it hit you instead." He hung his head, "God, I'm so sorry Kim."

Kim sighed.

"Hey, it's not your fault you're invincible," she said, aware how dumb her sentence sounded. "You didn't fire the gun. You can't blame yourself."

Simon ran his fingers though his hair. That was easy for Kim to say. He couldn't stop feeling he was to blame.

"How long are you stuck in here for?" he asked.

"Don't know," Kim mumbled tiredly, "how long was I _out _for?"

"A few hours," said Simon.

Kim looked at him as tough he'd just sprouted three heads.

"What?"

"A few hours," he repeated.

Kim frowned.

"What, _really?"_

Simon wondered what was going on.

"What's the matter Kim?"

Kim shook her head a little.

"Nothing," she said quietly, "just felt like longer. That's all."

Simon wasn't sure what to say to her. She seemed troubled by something beyond her shooting and pain. He gave her a nervous smile.

"We'll get you home as soon as we can," he said.

"I thought I already was," Kim said, so quietly that Simon wasn't sure if he heard correctly. He stared at her as he sat back in the chair and tried to think of something to say. Somehow he felt as though something had happened that he couldn't quite comprehend. Perhaps when she was feeling stronger she would be willing to share. Until then he'd have to hope she was strong enough to survive whatever turn her life had taken.

~xXx~

"Bollocks. Still got them closed."

Gene wanted to see those eyes. He needed to see them again to be sure that the flicker he'd seen, the glimpse of her soul, was the Alex he knew.

He slouched across the room and sank down in the chair beside her bed. He felt as though he'd said everything he could the day before. He hated hospitals, and more than that he hated people he knew being stuck in them. It sent him into a kind of panic that he had to keep hidden. He was used to being in control, top of the tree, _the Guv_. Unfortunately he didn't have any control over certain aspects of this world.

"I'm not going to beg, but if you're there…"

He sighed. He really couldn't think of anything he hadn't said already that stood a chance of bringing Alex back to him.

"I don't want to revert to the slap again, but I will if necessary."

As he studied her face there was something about it that he couldn't quite place but which warmed him a little. It took a while for him to realise it was the gentle smile that seemed to grace her features. He hadn't seen even a hint of that all the time _that_ Alex was running amuck in her body. He leaned a little closer.

"Probably a good thing you're not awake yet," he said quietly, "between you and me, I'm not looking me usual ruggedly handsome self. Had a bit of a night. Scotch, the basement and Jimbo's scribblings. Didn't make for the best night I've ever had. Got breath like those petrol fumes from Shoebury's car after the crash and me eyes are redder than a couple of stop signs. Need to scrub the fuzz off me tongue and take a fry-up in for questioning." He slowly stood up again. "Be back later when I don't look like that wino with the flashing mac we're always throwing in the cells."

He thought it was his imagination at first but her eyelids looked for all the world as though they started to flicker. He paused and blinked.

"Bolly?"

Now he was definitely seeing movement. They fluttered open and closed a few times as though too heavy to stay open. Eventually they opened for long enough that Gene could see what lay beneath. Her beautiful eyes. Her _soul._

"_Bolly._"

He saw her head move a fraction as she tried to regain control of her movements.

"That's typical!" Gene cried, "I tell you I bloody need you, spout a load of girly bollocks and nothing happens, I tell you I look like a wino and that's enough to lure you back!" He felt his heart starting to thump so hard that it made the pounding of his hangover worse. He leaned closer to her face. "You just wanted to wake up to take the piss out of the state of me, didn't you?"

Alex tried to focus but the bright light above blurred her vision. Her head hurt terribly and the pressure inside it made Gene's hangover feel like nothing but an itch. But as her vision began to slowly clear the sight she saw put butterflies in her stomach and twitched the corners of her lips into a smile.

"Gene," the word she breathed sent a squadron of relief into Gene, charging through his veins and taking control of his fears and worries.

"This _is _'you' now, isn't it?" he asked, "I'd ask for some ID, but, uh," he indicated her hospital gown, "got nowhere to keep it."

Alex weakly ran her tongue across her dry lips to stop them from cracking as she spoke, then in the tiniest voice she whispered with a smile,

"Surely that won't prevent you from carrying out a strip search, Gene."

That was it. That moment, _right there._ That was the moment he knew for sure, beyond any reasonable doubt, that his Bolly was home.

His eyes closed and he took a silent moment; a moment to thank whatever lucky star guided her back to him safely, to appreciate just how much he had longed for this moment and to know, deep inside, that this time she was going to be alright.

"Welcome home, Bolly," he said quietly as he leaned towards her. And this time, as he whispered to her gently, it was the right Alex who heard.

_**~xXx~**_

_**A/N: Tomorrow night will see one more double dose, and then probably back to single chapters – but I have said that before!**_


	82. Chapter 42, 2001: Detaché

_**A/N: 2 chapters tonight – then most likely one tomorrow and 2 on Sunday.**_

_**Also, Nailer's portrait is now up on my fic LJ!**_

**Chapter Forty Two: 2011**

Robin felt like an idiot sitting in the hospital corridor, cradling his wrist. There was a small child across the hall with a pan stuck on his head. Then again, wasn't there _always_ a small child with a pan stuck on its head? Robin felt pretty sure there had to have been a moment in his childhood when he _was_ the small child with the pan stuck on his head. It seemed like the sort of thing he'd have done.

"Why do I always have stupid accidents?" he mumbled.

"Because you keep doing stupid things?" Kelly suggested.

"But I don't!" Robin protested, "inanimate objects keep doing stupid things." He dropped his voice a little, "it's just that they happen to do them around me most of the time."

"I don't know how the door shut on your wrist so _hard,"_ Kelly said, poking it a little and causing him to yelp, "sorry."

Robin moved as far away from her in his seat as possible.

"I'm pretty sure your first aid course didn't include a unit on 'poking the injury'!" he protested.

"_Robin?"_

Robin glanced around to see a slightly frail but extremely determined Kim coming towards him down the corridor. There was an attractive woman on her arm; a jagged blonde bob framing her face with jewellery adorning her lip and her nose. He got up a little awkwardly and blushed with embarrassment.

"Kim," he said, "are you leaving already? I thought you weren't being discharged for a couple of hours?"

"It was that, or start piercing doctors through their privates to persuade them to let me go," said Kim, "couldn't take another minute in this place." She frowned, "what are you doing here?"

"Erm," Robin coughed a little, "I had a slight accident."

Kim looked at his rapidly swelling wrist and flinched.

"_Yeow,_ what did you do?" she asked, "don't tell me it was anything to do with the lion taming days?"

"My door bit it," Robin said a little awkwardly.

Kim wasn't sure how a door could do quite so much damage.

"Well, at least you haven't got a pan stuck on your head," she commented as the boy in question across the hall poked his tongue out at her and crossed his eyes. "Charming!" She turned to Kelly who had been sitting quietly and hoping to blend into the background. "Oh, Kelly," Kim gave a deep sigh and a smile crossed her face, _"Oh,_ I'd hoped I would get to see you. I need to say thank you. Thank you, so, so much. This is the biggest cliché in the world but you saved my life."

Kelly's smile was awkward and shy. What do you say to a thank-you like that? _'You're welcome'?_ Kim might have thought she was being clichéd but Kelly's reply would be even more so, she was sure.

"It was nothing," she said and cringed. She was right. Cliché-a-go-go.

"I wouldn't have made it if it wasn't for you," Kim told her, "you have no idea how much I owe you."

"I was just following my training, Ma'am," she flinched, "_Kim. _Kim," she got to her feet and cleared her throat awkwardly, "I'm really glad that you are getting stronger. It's good to see you on the mend." She gave a strained smile and looked a little pink around the cheeks.

"Well hopefully we can catch up properly at Robin's _reunion_ dinner," Kim said. She glanced at him, "that's still on, right?"

Robin nodded.

"Whenever I get use of my wrist back," he said, cradling it.

Kim had a flash of sadness across her face.

"It's a shame someone's going to be missing," she said quietly.

Robin nodded sadly.

"I know," he sighed.

Kim sighed too.

"I suppose we could always invite Layton to take her place."

"Do it and die," warned Robin.

"_Robin Thomas?"_

Robin glanced around to see a nurse calling him in. He frowned.

"That's Robin _Shoebury-Thomas,"_ he corrected.

The lady beside Kim turned to her with a frown.

"Is he related to you?" she asked.

Kim felt awkward suddenly. It was trues she'd taken Shoebury as her fake surname before she married Linda. This was her own personal converging of worlds and it made her feel pretty damn weird.

"No," she said quietly, "but I feel a bit like I've adopted him as a brother." She paused for a moment. "Linda, this is Robin and Kelly."

"Oh, _this_ is Robin?" Linda said a little warily.

Robin bit his lip nervously.

"Nice to meet you," he said nervously extending his food hand to shake hers, "and, err, sorry for sending Ki-_Alex_ on the run," he smiled a little awkwardly. He wondered how strange it was for Kim to be hearing two different names all the time now. What was he supposed to call her now the drama was over.

Luckily she seemed to read his mind.

"_Kim,"_ she corrected. She gave him a very sincere smile, "Nothing else would feel right coming from you."

Robin nodded and glanced behind him where the nurse was looking impatient and checking her watch.

"At least she's _got_ a watch," he mumbled. He smiled and gave a nod. "Bye, Kim. Stay safe. I'll be round to see you soon."

"Bye Robin," Kim smiled. She began to walk away, calling over her shoulder at the last minute, "and bring pizza!"

"What else?" Robin smiled, before reluctantly following the nurse through for an X-Ray and, most likely, a lot of moaning about his intense hatred of medical facilities.

~xXx~

"You were lucky!" Kelly insisted.

"What's lucky about this bloody sling?" cried Robin.

"You could have had a fracture," Kelly pointed out.

"My _luck_ is fractured," moaned Robin, "I must have broken a mirror or something and not known."

Robin felt as though that was the biggest waste of time in history. X-rays and several spells of waiting had led him to lose almost the whole day to hospital corridors and now it was almost half past three and all he had to show for it was a lousy sling. In fact he was thinking of having that slogan printed on it.

"_I spent six hours in A&E and all I got was this lousy sling!"_

_Severe bruising_ was the assessment. _Severely bruised ego,_ Robin corrected.

They were about to leave when Robin hesitated. There was one more stop to make while he was there.

"Kelly, I'm just going to visit Alex, "he said quietly.

"We have to get back," Kelly said awkwardly. It was hard enough seeing Kim. She wished her memory gaps had never started to find themselves bridged.

"Just for a moment," Robin said quietly, "if I can't drive for a few days then I won't get another chance for a while."

Kelly gave a reluctant sigh and followed Robin through the corridors on a route he knew well. Outside of another room stood two uniformed officers. Robin tried not to think about the fact that Arthur Layton was inside that room, laying in his hospital bed. He shuddered and pressed on to Alex's room.

To his surprise, a rather annoying woman was standing outside, surrounded by a camera crew.

"…_And it was within this room that Evan sat by his goddaughter's bedside every day for two and a half years, keeping a terrible secret that it would take one terrible rooftop confrontation to reveal…"_

"Excuse me?" Robin began crossly, "what do you think you're doing?

"_Cut,"_ someone called from somewhere.

The annoying presenter put her hands on her hips, turned to him and said crossly.

"That was my big emotional introduction and you've just ruined it!"

"Has Alex given you permission to film outside her room?" Robin demanded, "no, she hasn't!"

"Yes, well, maybe if she wasn't in a comatose condition we could have asked her," the woman said sarcastically.

"Well maybe if you don't want my fist to interfere with the position of your boom then you can go and film somewhere else!" Robin threatened.

The woman glanced at his sling.

"Your fist isn't looking very capable to me," she commented.

"I've still got the other one. And I'm ambidextrous."

The woman was a little torn. His sling suggested he was talking a world of bollocks. The look in his eyes suggested otherwise.

"Uh… come on then, everyone," she addressed the crew, "let's go and film some scenes outside the antagonist's room instead!"

Robin watched as the camera crew disappeared down the corridor to film outside of Layton's room, leaving Kelly to look at him with amusement.

"What a load of bull," she commented, "like you'd punch anyone or anything."

"Well they're not to know that," Robin pointed out, "besides, I would have quite liked to try."

He peered through the window in the door and saw someone already sitting by Alex's hospital bed. It was Molly and she had a tiny pot of something in her hands. Feeling a little awkward, he opened the door. He hadn't seen Molly since their conversation the week before and he wasn't sure what she was going to say to him. She looked up in surprise.

"Robin? Why aren't you at work?"

"Why aren't _you_ at _school?"_ Robin countered.

"Half term," said Molly.

"Good answer," said Robin. He pointed to his sling, "broken wrist."

"_Bruised_ wrist," Kelly corrected.

Robin blushed.

"Bruised wrist, broken watch," he conceded.

Molly looked at her mother laying in the hospital bed and turned the tiny pot in her hands over and over.

"Mum's friend came in and gave me this for her tattoo," she said.

Robin gave a little smile.

"Kim," he said.

Molly nodded.

"She told me to put it on twice a day for her."

Robin's smile was a little weak.

"You're taking good care of her," he said.

An awkward silence fell between them. It was a stalemate. Molly knew there was so much more that Robin wasn't saying about whoever Gene was and Robin knew that Molly wasn't stupid and knew that there was something deeper afoot than he was going to tell her. He wondered if it was crueller to keep her in the dark than to try telling her the truth, but how would he ever explain it? She'd probably laugh in his face. Or slap him in it.

Eventually Robin conceded defeat. It was best just to go for now.

"Well," he said quietly, "I'll be back to see your mum soon."

"Don't go yet," said Molly.

"No, I'd really better," said Robin, "I was only back to work for half an hour and then had an accident."

Molly nodded with a disappointed smile. She wanted to probe Robin for more information and they both knew it. Maybe this just wasn't the time, she thought, but she would find out one day. She'd just keep working on him until he gave in. In the meanwhile, she had a tattoo to attend to.

"Byre, Robin," she said, "try not to have any more accidents."

"Anyone would think I do this all the time!" cried Robin.

"You do," said Molly, "Simon told me."

Robin sighed. He was out of arguments.

"See you later, Molly," he said and left before his pride could take any more of a dent.

He made his way back out of the hospital with Kelly, threatening the rogue camera crew for a second time along the way. He was quite enjoying his new-found assertiveness, even though someone did threaten to stick the boom where the sun doesn't shine.

It was in silence that Kelly drove him back to the station, his mind far away. It felt as though perhaps the strangeness of recent times was finally drawing to a close and reality was kicking in. He closed his eyes as he tried to comprehend how much had changed, both in his life and within himself. He had finally started to gather the strength and courage he'd never had before. That inner-strength he'd always chased and never quite found.

New friends, new post, even a new car – the new watch hadn't worked out quite as well, but he could gloss over that for now.

The one thing he would never be able to get past was losing Simon. There was a hole in his life that hurt terribly. But somehow his strange moment after the car crash had given him a touch of strength. He'd felt as certain as anything that Simon had been sitting beside him. It wasn't a dream or a hallucination or concussion – for that split second he'd been there – right there. As illogical as it sounded he knew it, deep in his heart. The butterflies he felt every time he thought about it confirmed that.

Perhaps that was it. Worlds had collided, just for a moment, and he just needed to wait for the next time. If it had happened once it would happen again.

He had an inner knowledge now. A feeling inside that they _would_ be together again. He felt more certain than ever that they were not supposed to be apart and that one day they'd be reunited. Surviving the time apart would be the difficult part.

In fact, surviving _full stop_ was going to be difficult.

But of course, Robin wasn't to know that.

**~xXx~**

_**A/N: And there we shall leave 2011 for a while as we join Alex, Gene, Simon and Kim for the festive season over in 1995… well, I've already seen Christmas cards in the shops so it's never too early for a bit of festive cheer! Can't you taste the turkey?**_


	83. Chapter 42, 1995: Accarezzévole

_**A/N: SO sorry if you tried to read this and got the 2011 chapter twice, I must have posted the same chapter for 1995 as well. Sorry, it gets confusing!**_

_**Anyway, this is he second chapter tonight**_

**Chapter Forty Two: 1995**

Gene walked from the room, battling hard. It was a fight he was only just winning. The fight to stop the dumb grin spreading across his face. He could see Simon walking towards him and turned away, partly to give him more time to hide the grin and partly just to be mean.

"Gene," Simon called, "how is she?" he started to panic, "oh god, it's bad news, isn't it?"

Gene gave a dramatic sigh and a pause long enough to send Simon's blood pressure through the roof.

"Yes, Simon. It's bad news."

"Oh my god, what's happened? Was there more damage? She's not dead… she's not, is she?"

Gene turned around and looked him in the eye.

"I'm afraid you're going to have to find a new token straight man for yer house of homos," he said. He waited for Simon to twig but his hangover was still doing a number on his brain. "She's _awake,_ mulch-brain."

It took Simon a couple more seconds to realise the further implication of Gene's declaration.

"And it's her? It's really her?"

"No slaps, no flinching and no mentions of crockery," Gene told him.

Simon closed his eyes and backed up against the wall with a sigh of relief.

"Oh, thank _God,"_ he said. He took a couple of breaths before turning to Gene with a scowl. "And you thought that was funny because…?"

Gene gave a shrug.

"Just seeing how many of yer brain cells you killed off with my scotch last night," he said.

Simon looked at him seriously.

"Gene," he began, "how much does she remember?"

Gene's heart sank. He hadn't really got that far yet.

"Funnily enough I haven't been grilling her yet. Or sending her down to Mensa for full IQ testing."

"I just wondered if she'd said anything…?" Simon began a little awkwardly.

"No mention of Jimbo," said Gene, "but we haven't had much time for a chinwag yet."

Simon sighed deeply.

"I wonder how much she knows of what happened here," he said quietly.

"If anything," said Gene, "What doesn't she remember, and what doesn't she _want_ to remember?"

Simon hesitated.

"You are sure this is really her, aren't you?" he asked.

"I know my Bols when I see her," said Gene, "besides, she even let me check 'er vitals."

"Gene!" cried Simon. He shook his head slowly. "There's such a thing as overcompensating you know. One day someone's going to accuse you of being firmly trapped in the closet."

"And on that day, someone is going to be paying a visit to the dentist with the rest of their teeth in their pocket," said Gene.

They fell into silence for a moment during which they heard slow and steady footsteps approaching. Gene couldn't be bothered to turn around and look, while Simon simply hadn't met the man before and didn't recognise him, but soon a voice said,

"DCI Hunt."

Gene looked around and started cursing silently.

"Superintendent Fletcher," he said allowed while his head was screaming, _Fuck! Bollocks! _He cleared his throat a little and tried to look slightly less hung over. "What are you doing here sir?"

"I was sitting around, waiting for you to give me an update on DCI Drake's mental state last night," The Super began, "and fully intending to put you both up for a transfer when the deadline came and went. And then I heard about the accident." He took a deep breath. "How is she doing?"

Gene felt a little anxious.

"Just woken up, sir," he said.

"And the rumours about the accident and the roof incident…?"

Gene took a deep breath.

"Sir, DCI Keats of Fenchurch West CID has been drugging DCI Drake and affecting her behaviour."

The super looked at him.

"Is this true?"

Gene nodded seriously. It was half true. And as good a reason as any to explain Alex's unruly behaviour.

"He then took her hostage at gunpoint on the roof," he continued, "shot my DS and showed he needs to retake his driving test."

The super breathed deeply. He stared at Gene.

"And where is he now?" he asked.

Gene indicated with a shake of his head.

"Down that corridor," said Gene, "with a couple of Easter Island heads on the door."

The super nodded slowly.

"_Whose_ men are on the door?" he asked.

Gene bristled.

"_His,_ Sir," he said.

Fletcher nodded.

"Alright," he said quietly, "I'll deal with this."

Gene looked at him, a little confused.

"Sir?"

"Let's get rid of those bookends and get some proper muscle on the doors, just to be certain," Fletcher told him, "and tell DCI Drake I'll be looking forward to meeting with her in a few days to see how she's faring out from the influence of his pill packet."

Gene swallowed.

"Thank you Sir."

Fletcher looked at him sincerely. He really did like Gene and didn't want to see him or Alex anywhere else but in Fenchurch East.

"Consider both your suspensions suspended," he said, "but I meant what I said. I'll need to see for myself that the old Alex is back."

Gene hesitated a little.

"That's an interesting choice of phrase, sir," he said.

Fletcher sighed.

"That's an interesting choice of cologne," he countered, "perhaps you should wash up before heading back to work. Hmm?"

Fletcher had a little smile as he walked away. Despite his standing he was just a little intimidated by Gene and his passion for his job. It wasn't often he tried to get one over on him but he felt he'd managed it with that line. Still, he was sure he'd be paying for that. He'd heard about various incidents with previous superintendents that usually involved personal possessions taking a swim in the toilet or vegetables being jammed in either their various orifices or their car exhausts.

Gene turned back to Simon, exhaling loudly.

"At least Drake had a job to come home to," he said.

There was a metallic clattering and to Simon's abject horror he saw Kim sloping exhaustedly down the corridor with her drip stand.

"Kim!" he cried, "what the hell are you doing?"

Kim moved at the pace of about a step every five seconds.

"It's OK," she said, "I've seen this on TV."

"What? Passing out in the corridor from blood loss?" cried Simon.

"Staggering along with the drip stand," Kim said breathlessly, "It's a rite of passage."

Simon shook his head and sighed.

"What the hell are you doing up? Doctors aren't going to like this."

"They can stick a bedpan up their arse," said Kim, "I wanted to see Alex." She glanced at Gene, "how is she, Guv?"

Gene looked a little relieved.

"Eyes open, wide awake," he said.

"Really?" that had taken her by surprise.

"And as a a bonus, we've got Alex, mark-one back," Gene continued.

"_Real_ Alex?" cried Kim, "the one without the waggly fingers?"

"The very same," said Simon.

Gene looked at them behaving like excitable children who wanted to go and see a box of kittens and gave a slight sigh.

"I'll give yer five minutes with her then it's back to the ward with you, Stringer." He frowned at Simon. "And off to the _shower _with you."

"Hey!" Simon frowned, "I don't smell that bad."

"Did you drink my scotch or wash in it?"

Simon scowled

"I liked you better when you were pissed in the basement," he said as he slumped though the doorway with Gene and a very slow Kim following on behind.

Alex opened her eyes slowly at the sound of people approaching. She felt so very tired, like she'd been making a colossal journey across the world on foot. She broke into a slight smile as the fuzzy figures came closer and became more defined in her vision.

"_Kim,"_ she said quietly. She took a deep breath and focused on her. "I think I had a dream about you."

That took Kim by surprise.

"A what?"

Alex breathed in and out. It was still hard to pull her words together.

"A dream," she whispered, "while I was asleep. I remember you there." She gave a little sigh. It sounded almost contented, "you were different."

Kim smiled nervously. She didn't know what to make of that.

"Any dream with me in had to be a nightmare," she joked quietly.

"No, no," Alex smiled, "of course not," but as she spoke a tiny memory started to stab at her. The word _'nightmare'_ had started to trigger something that lay dormant in her mind, but she couldn't quite release it. She flinched momentarily but put it right out of her mind.

"Alex?" another voice spoke and another face loomed into view. This time it was Simon. He looked a little awkward. And he smelt like a brewery.

"Hey," she said quietly with a tired smile.

"Alex… I'm so sorry," he said quietly.

"Hmm?" Alex tried to frown but barely wrinkled her brow, "why?"

"I tried to keep control of the car but he just went crazy in front of us," Simon told her, "I really tried to keep us safe, but –"

"What?" Alex shook her head slightly, "I was driving."

Simon frowned.

"No, no, Alex, I was driving us. You were in the passenger seat?"

"Oh, don't be silly, Robin," Alex sighed tiredly, shuffling slightly against her pillow.

"What?"

"What?"

"What did you call me?"

"Huh?"

"You called me Robin."

Alex stared at Simon. Had she? Why had she done that?

"_Simon,"_ she sighed, "I'm sorry, I'm really sorry… Just so confused. I can't really remember… very much…"

"I think it's time to let sleeping beauty get some rest," Gene began to heard the others out of the door like a sheepdog, "it's been nice to have the pleasure of your rainbow-coloured company," he shut the door behind them, "don't hurry back though."

Alex stared at Gene and he walked back to her bed. Her vision was still a little blurred but she would know his features anywhere. To see them warmed her inside and made her smile.

"_Gene,"_ she breathed, her voice soft and contented.

Gene sat down beside her, his legs wide open as a macho gesture to detract from the sitting down and holding her hand that was about to take place.

"Thought you'd transferred out for good," he said.

"Why would I want to do that?" Alex smiled, "my office chair spins round faster than yours and the cuisine in the canteen is second to none!"

He looked at her seriously.

"How you feeling, Bols?" he still paused for a split second, fearing that a horrified remark was about to fly at him but none came.

"Starving," she said a little pathetically.

"Starving?" Gene repeated. It seemed like a weird thing to say.

"I keep having these visions of cabbage soup and stringy lettuce leaves," Alex gagged a little. She looked at him seriously. "Gene?"

"Yes, Lady B?"

"I need to ask you something," she said, "and I need you to answer honesty."

Gene stared at her. There were a number of questions he hoped she wasn't going to ask.

"Ask away," he said.

Alex hesitated.

"What in the name of hell has happened to my hair?" she demanded.

Gene froze for a second. That hadn't been the kind of question he was expecting.

"Yer barnet?" he asked.

she reached up slowly and ran her fingers through the fallen quiff.

"And this isn't the first time this has happened to me, either!" she complained, "why is it every time I'm unconscious in hospital someone decides it's a good idea to cut my hair?"

Gene closed his eyes for a second. He felt himself giving an uncharacteristic laugh. It wasn't something he'd done in a very long time. It wasn't the kind of question he'd been expecting her to as and while in its own way it had dark connotations it was a relief compared to some of the things he had been anticipating.

"Your hair," he sighed.

"And it's always this style too!" she said, a little indignantly, "is this the uniformed look for people who are unconscious in comas? The bob and quiff look. Are there crazy hairdressers roaming the wards for a victim? The sound of scissors ringing through the corridors?"

Gene closed his eyes, breathed in deeply and exhaled with a smile that he could no longer banish from his features. This was her, alright. This was Alex. This was the Alex he'd shared his life with for the last 15 years. This was the Alex who's shared her bed with him for the last ten. This was the Alex who'd brought a new dimension to his life, his world and his job.

This was the Alex he'd missed every last fucking second of every last fucking day.

"You, Missus Fruitcake," he began sternly, looking in the eye, "had better not be going anywhere for a very long time."

Alex's lips twitched back into a smile. Her hair rant was now over, for the time being at least.

"Only home," she whispered, "when can I leave here?"

Gene looked at her sincerely.

"The hospital?" he asked, "Soon as you can stand without falling over like Shoebury on his second scotch. This world?" he shook his head. "I'm gonna anchor you down this time. You're going nowhere, Lady B. Nowhere."


	84. Chapter 43, 1995: Dolente

**Chapter Forty Three**

**(For the foreseeable future 1995 is a permanent state of affairs!)**

**~xXx~**

Two days.

So much can happen in two days.

It can seem like such a long time for someone on the wrong side of patience, and yet if you're hoping to delay the inevitable it can pass like a cheetah across the landscape.

"I'm not staying another day." Alex was firm and insistent on this fact. She'd worn the hospital gown of doom one time too many and she needed to be free. She couldn't wait to wear her own clothes. It was funny, but it felt as though it had been forever since she'd worn anything of her own.

There were gaps. There were definite gaps.

There were little bitty ones that would easily slip away like grains of sand.

And there were great big honking huge ones that loomed large like a lion prowling around the room.

She remembered things. Bits of what had happened. But she was struggling to piece them together. She didn't tell Gene what she remembered, and Gene didn't push her about it. They were both skirting around the issue and they knew it.

This wasn't the time, nor the place.

Alex wasn't the only person champing at the bit to get out of the hospital either. Kim had been threating to do unmentionable things to the unmentionable things that one of the doctors kept in his underwear if he did not agree to let her go home.

Finally two strong survivors prepared to leave hospital and head home.

~xXx~

"Gene!"

Gene didn't look around.

"No."

Simon frowned.

"You don't even know what I was going to ask you," he protested.

"So you admit you were going to ask me something," said Gene.

Simon hesitated. _Bollocks._

"Maybe."

"Well, whatever it is; no."

"But Gene –"

"If you '_But Gene'_ me one more time then _your_ butt is going to get a kicking from here to Fenchurch West!" Gene told him sternly, "so stop it."

"I was just thinking this might be a good time to re-launch my _Come Dine With Me_ idea…" Simon began which earned an extra angry glare from Gene.

"I told you, Shoebury, if you start pitching twenty-first century shows off the bloody idiot box to me then I'll be shoving the aerial so far up yer nose that you'll be able to pick up channel five. And they're still retuning all the videos."

"I just think it would help us all to bond a bit," said Simon.

"I've done too much bloody bonding with you," said Gene, relieved that he was going to be moving out of Simon's world of geekdom.

"Help Alex to reintegrate into society."

"She's not been in bloody outer space!" cried Gene.

"You could show off your culinary expertise."

"Warm up a sodding pasty, you mean?"

"You might win?"

"I'm already one of life's winners, Simon."

"You'll get three free meals into the bargain."

Gene hesitated.

"Tell me more."

Finally, Simon gave a smirk. Was that it? Was that his first victory of persuasion over Gene? He thought so but he wasn't sure. Never the less, it was time to start planning a three course meal and adapting the delights of home for the CID world.

"I will give you a full breakdown of the programme tomorrow," he assured Gene, "Right now I am going to pick up Kim and take her home. But start planning your menu."

"Scotch," said Gene.

"A three course menu."

"Scotch soup, roast scotch and scotch pudding," said Gene.

Simon decided to leave it there. One victory was all he was going to get out of the Manc lion for one day. It was time to quit while he was ahead.

Simon and Gene went their separate ways as Simon took Kim back to his flat while Gene took Alex home to hers. He hadn't stepped inside since the day _she'd_ thrown him out. Not since the day he'd tried to remind her of what they had. But of course, he'd never 'had' anything with _her_. That was another Alex. Now, he finally had the right one.

She stepped nervously through the doorway and looked around her. The room seemed strange. Things had been changed. Rearranged. Moved.

"It's weird," she said quietly, "it feels as though everything's changed. Like I'm a stranger here."

Gene gently took his coat from around her shoulders and guided her to the couch. She was still weak and the doctors had advised a longer stay, but Gene had advised them they were going to find themselves heading for reconstructive surgery if any of them stood in her way.

"Believe me Bolly, one thing you are not – is a stranger," he said with relief as he helped her onto the sofa. She sank into the leather with a sigh of contentment and looked up at Gene.

"Are you joining me?" she asked, her eye twinkling just a little.

Gene hung back.

"You've been in a car accident and yer heart stopped," he began, "you need rest. Rest, grapes and coffee."

"Coffee can wait," Alex said with a smile, She tried to hook him towards her with her foot but her body lacked strength and he managed to get away.

"Coffee first," he said, "I'll fire up the kettle."

Alex felt a little deflated as she watched him leave. She'd been waiting for this moment since she opened her eyes. He'd never turned her down before, especially not for coffee.

Well, unless it was a latte.

She leaned back, her head resting against the arm of the couch. There were definitely some things that were different. Things had been shuffled and moved around. There was a different aura about the place completely. It was like it lacked something.

"Gene?" she called out.

"Hold onto yer knickers, Bols, I'm battling tea bags here," Gene called back.

Alex hesitated.

"Why are you battling tea bags if you're making coffee?" she asked.

There was a moment of silence.

"Because you're out of coffee," he said eventually.

Alex sighed and closed her eyes.

"Fine," she said, "anyway…"

Before she could finish her sentence Gene came back with a mug for each of them, plonking them hard on the table. He sank to the floor beside her, leaning back a little against the couch. It reminded him of a night many years ago when she had just arrived in his world. Many drinks later and one very, very pissed Alex Drake had lain across the sofa, threatening to lose the contents of her belly while he flopped back against the side of the furniture, wishing she hadn't told him to leave her be.

"First rate tea this is," he said, "not like that gnat's piss you get in hospital."

Alex smiled a little weakly. She had a horrible feeling that the conversation was going to move on a little from hot beverages, and it wasn't going to be easy going.

"I missed you," she breathed.

Gene looked at her, a little surprised. For the first time she had acknowledged the length of time apart. He gave a nod and a gruff noise of agreement.

"Me an' all," he said quietly. He looked at her seriously. "So you know you've been away then?" he noted her eyes flickered downwards. No matter how many times she tried to raise them again they still turned downwards in the end. "Where've you been, Bolly?" He couldn't put off the inevitable any longer. He couldn't erase the last few weeks from living memory. There were things he needed to know. There were also things _she_ needed to know, and he wasn't sure how many of them she recalled. "At least tell me that."

Alex looked down. Everything seemed a bit of a blur, if she was honest. The structure of the whole period of time that she'd been split apart felt incredibly surreal. Torn in two and unable to choose between her only daughter and the man she loved, her soul had ripped right down the middle and been dispatched to both bodies, but back to front. As cars and worlds collided and her injuries sent her back out of her body the two halves swirled and twirled and collided once again, rejoining in a burst of splendour that shocked both worlds in its awesome power.

Although the souls rejoined, both held their slight individuality and as the choice had to be made they fought for supremacy.

Which way to go? Forward or back? 2011 or 1995? Molly or Gene? The decision so great and so difficult that it almost tore her in two again, but one half was stronger than the other.

One Alex had the strength, the courage and the determination to let her voice be heard above the other half of her soul.

Decision made. Home to Gene.

Now that both halves were joined as one she recalled all of her life until her shooting by Keats. She remembered her old life in the real world; Molly, Evan, her shooting by Layton – and she remembered arriving in 1981, her years with Gene, the nature of the world and all they had been through together. She remembered everything up to that bullet piercing her head; Keats firing randomly around the hospital room and sending her to the floor in a lifeless heap. Then –

After that moment things became a bit of a blur. She remembered snippets and moments, things from her time in 2011 but not altogether in the right order. Her memories of arriving in 1995 with a clean slate, a fresh mind and a pompous, know-it-all attitude were non-existent though. That part of her was the weaker half, those memories lay buried under the other part of her soul. For how long? There was no way of knowing.

"I've been," her voice wavered, "somewhere that I was lost. Somewhere where I thought I had nobody. Somewhere that I didn't have you." She looked at him and felt her eyed beginning to fill with tears. She didn't want that. The last thing she wanted was to become overemotional but it was hard to keep those tears in, "and I'm not sure I remember enough to give you the answers you're looking for."

Gene stared at her. He picked up his tea and sipped it as a distraction. It was hot but fairly tasteless. He hadn't left the tea bag in for long enough. She stared into it for a moment then looked back at her.

"Can you give me a ballpark, Bolly?" he asked, "are we talking forwards or backwards?"

Alex swallowed.

"Forwards," she whispered.

"Shoebury time?" he paused. "Post-Shoebury?"

"By a few months," she whispered.

Gene hesitated. He nodded slightly and looked at the floor.

"How did you get back?" he asked.

Alex breathed in deeply.

"There was a car," she whispered.

Gene nodded.

"I know," he said.

Alex glanced at him.

"I meant in my other time," she said.

"Me too."

She frowned.

"How did you know?"

Gene slurped his tea a little, then placed it back on the table with a thump.

"Got a good radio in me car, Drakey. Amazing what it can pick up." He saw her looking at him expectantly but he wasn't sure he wanted to enlarge on that. The fact that some messages had been crossing over for those who were already dead and buried had been making him feel a little anxious and confused, and that wasn't something he wanted to dwell upon. He took a deep breath. "So you were in the Batmobile, were you?"

Alex opened her mouth a little. She hesitated and tried to place the fragments together. It sounded familiar.

"_Robin's car,"_ she whispered, "I was driving. Chasing Layton." She closed her eyes. "I remember a roof, and a beard, but I can't really work it out." She shook her head slowly. "I remember being scared, for days and weeks." She realised one more thing and looked at Gene wide eyed. "I was there for _weeks,_ Gene. Weeks."

Gene felt heavy hearted as he looked at the expression on her face.

"Not been gone so long from 'ere," he said, "but it's bloody felt like years."

"I felt so lost," she told him. Despite the nature of her words her voice was stronger now, as though reaching into those reserves that got her through, "I had to run, and keep running, just to stay safe, but I had…" she felt a flicker of a smile grace her lips, "I had friends. People by my side."

Gene nodded and slurped down the rest of his tea.

"I'm glad you had people on your side," he said, the thought of not being one of them killing him a little inside.

"And I never, ever lost hope," she said. She looked him right in the eye. "I knew I would be back." There was that sparkle again in her eye. Her determination had paid off. This was what she wanted – what she needed – and she got it. Home, with Gene, in her own flat, her own body and her own world.

"I'm glad you're such a tough old trout," said Gene.

"Tr-_trout?"_ Alex cried, a little outraged, unsure whether to laugh or offer him a slap, "thank you for that comparison, Gene, I shall be polishing my scales tonight." Her face fell a little as she stared at him seriously. "Gene?"

Gene sighed.

"Sorry about the trout thing," he said.

But that wasn't what Alex wanted to talk about.

"Her," she began, "_me._ The other me." She noticed his expression became stilted and a little angry, "how… how did _she_ cope?" she stared at Gene, waiting for an answer, but he didn't seem to have one for her, "what did she do? Who was there to help her? I mean, I know that you would have been helping as much as you could, but…" she trailed off as she watched Gene's expression grow dark. "What? What is it?"

Gene took a deep breath. Despite the tasteless state of his tea he picked up his mug and stood up.

"Drink yer tea, Bolly," he said, "I'm making another one."

"What?" Alex frowned, "I haven't touched this one yet."

"Then hurry up and get it down yer neck" Gene told her. He handed her the mug and took his own through to the kitchen where he started to boil the kettle. The whistling sound drowned out his anxiety and the nerves he was feeling about the subject of _her._ The waggly-fingered one. Miss yo-yo knickers. He took as long as he possibly could making the tea. Every stir of the spoon rang through the air like the clanging of a bell in his mind. He glanced back through to her. She hadn't even had more than a sip of her first cup but a second tea was on the way, like it or not. Eventually he took them through to the lounge, a packet of biscuits tucked under his arm.

"Pink wafers," he said, a little unnecessarily.

Alex gave a thin smile. His behaviour was making her nervous. She sipped her first cup of tea and started up on her last line of questioning again.

"So what happened when she arrived?" she said quietly, "She must have been confused… I'm trying to remember what t was like for me," she bit her lip and thought for a moment, "of course, she'll have remembered Sam Tyler's files…"

Gene bristled a little.

"He's become a bit of a sore point around here lately," he said, busying himself opening the packet.

Alex glanced up.

"Why?" she asked quietly.

Gene cleared his throat awkwardly.

"Just don't let Shoebury buy 'imself a new jacket for Christmas," Gene told her, "that's all I'm saying."

Alex sighed a little nervously. She tried to put herself in the position of the other 'her' again.

"So, when I first came here I knew I was in the year my parents died," she began.

Gene rusted the packet loudly and plopped three pink wafers onto Alex's chest like a shelf.

"Stop theorising and get these down you," he said, "you're looking a bit scrawny."

Alex ignored the wafers and carried on.

"Now, I suppose, coming to nineteen ninety five, she may have wondered what was important about this year…" she continued, "Well, I think there was a house move. Molly… I discovered that I was having Molly…" there was a flash of sadness across her face. Now that she knew she had a daughter there was a part of here wracked with guilt for the half of her who'd wasted her time in 2011 denying her. She decided to try a different line of thinking, "she would have known you from Tyler's notes," she continued, "but of course the other names have long since gone. She wouldn't have known Kim or Simon."

"_You_ don't know when to shut yer mouth and eat your bloody biscuits," said Gene.

"How can I eat them if my mouth is shut?" Alex pointed out.

Gene stared at her. He had missed this. It wasn't just the love or even the sex he'd missed, it was the _friendship_. Because beneath everything, that's what they had – a good, solid friendship. The banter had been one of the things he missed the most. Alex gave as good as she got. She was probably the only one who ever had. Shoebury showed promise but he was still too easy to shock. He had his sparring partner back, and that was every bit as important as having his lover back.

"I'm starting to miss your coma," he told her, "I had a lot less 'eadaches when you were asleep."

Alex's mind was still running over her other self. Despite picking up one of the wafers and thinking for a few moments about eating it she started to talk again instead.

"So, what did she do?" Alex asked, "How long did it take her to work it all out?"

Gene stared at her. This was a conversation he really didn't want to have. Inwardly he sighed.

"About half an hour before you came back," he said.

Alex hesitated.

"What?"

"She didn't exactly show a lot of initiative," Gene said a little crossly.

"What do you mean?" Alex felt more nervous by the second. She looked around. "What did she do to this place? It looked… weird. Empty."

Gene exhaled. He closed his eyes for a second.

"She got rid of a big piece of furniture for a start," he said.

Alex frowned.

"What?" she asked. She looked around and although the flat did seem different she couldn't see anything missing. Nothing that big, anyway. Gene looked a little awkward.

"Me," he said."

Alex frowned.

"What?" she whispered.

"Been taking up residence of Shoebury's couch," Gene told her quietly, "that's been an experience I don't want to repeat in a hurry. I keep having to shower to wash off the geek cooties."

Alex stared at him, her mouth slightly open. Her heart was racing as she thought about it.

"My God, Gene," she whispered, "That's… that's terrible," she swallowed, unsure what to say. It wasn't _her_ fault, but it was still a _part_ of her that had done it and the guilt was crushing. "Gene… I am so,_ so_ sorry."

Gene looked away. He picked up his tea and started dunking pink wafers to give himself a distraction. He dunked so hard that his tea soon became slightly pink tea with a surface covering of biscuit scum. Finally he said,

"It's not been a picnic around here since you went away, Bols."

Alex sat upright, knocking wafers left, right and centre. She looked down at Gene with worry.

"What else happened?" she asked quietly.

Gene took a deep breath and tried not to sigh. Trying to protect Alex was hard. Keeping things from her was painful. But knowing everything would be more so. He took another gulp of tea, despite the biscuit scum. He was starting to _feel_ like a cup of tea by now, but any distraction was worthwhile. Eventually he looked down at his feet and said,

"World falls apart when you're not here. And I mean that. Literally." He sighed eventually. Couldn't hold it in any longer. "Stars on the ceiling. It's been a mad world without you here. Shoebury's emulating Noel bloody Edmonds, I've forgotten the existence if any food that doesn't come in a flat, square box and the Super's been on me back."

"What? _Why?"_

Gene didn't want to tell her but keeping so many things from her was too hard.

"Your _brain replacement_ made a complaint of sexual harassment against me," he said.

Alex couldn't hold back the cry of alarm that came from deep within her.

"Oh, _Gene, _no!" she cried, the guilt consuming her, "Oh my God, please tell me this is a joke?"

"If it is then it's not been a very funny one," Gene mumbled, slurping his tea and choking a little on the biscuit scum.

Alex's eyes shone with shocked tears and her whole face fell. A grey tone crossed her skin as she stared at him and her heart sank so hard she felt sure lit literally fell into the pit of her stomach. At least, there was something heavy in there. If not her heart then it was a boulder.

"Gene, what else did she do?" her tone was level, determined and a little gruff, "Gene?" her eyes demanded the truth, but some things needed to be filtered. Gene gave a sigh as he realised now what it had been like for Simon in the basement. Knowing the truth and knowing how it could break another, unsure whether to let it stay buried or to be open and honest.

"She found herself a new job," he said sharply.

"What?" Alex frowned. She stared at him. Whatever it was, it must have been bad. Something weird inside her made her suggest, "Lion tamer?" but she couldn't quite remember why. She absently checked her hands but none of her digits were missing.

Gene gave an ironic laugh.

"Yer not far out," he mumbled, "almost got the better of this Manc Lion."

Alex's fear was rising rapidly. She swallowed as her heart pounded in her chest.

So it _was _a boulder in her stomach after all then.

"What did she do?" she said quietly. Her tone was gentle but her eyes demanded the truth. Gene couldn't look into them any longer.

"She defected," he said.

Alex swallowed.

"Defected how?"

Gene hesitated.

"She might as well have been singing a chorus of _Go West,"_ he mumbled.

Alex's eyes opened wide. Her horror and devastation as she realised what Gene meant shook her to the core and she felt her hands beginning to tremble, so much so she had to put down her unfinished cup of tea.

"She worked for Keats," she whispered. It wasn't a question. Gene nodded to confirm what she already knew.

"Yeah," he mumbled, "she _worked_ for Keats."

Slowly Alex's hand rose up to her head.

"The hair?" she whispered.

Gene didn't reply. He didn't want to delve into it any more deeply on a personal level right then. He wasn't ready, and neither was she. One step at a time.

"Finally saw through him," he said, "he dragged her – you – whoever… up to the roof. Simon tried to kill 'im with facts but he's got a harder outer shell than a smartie in the freezer."

"What do you mean, kill him with facts?" Alex whispered, almost scared to learn any more.

"Shoe-boy went for a holiday somewhere nice and hot," he said, "spent a day in the basement digging through Jimbo's files. He thought if he found out why he turned into a four-eyed demon then he could win him round, score one for the humanoids, but nothing happened. Then he started going wobbly-lipped over Metal Mickey, fled like a fleet of chickens, set his gun on random and sped off to the road of doom."

Alex gulped as his words started to sink in. Her stomach started to churn violently. It made her feel sick inside.

"Simon chased him," she whispered, "didn't he?"

Gene nodded.

"Yes, he did."

"And I chased Layton," she whispered, "and somehow –"

Gene nodded. He didn't want her to have to finish that sentence.

"However you got here, just consider me bloody relieved to have yer back, Bols," he told her.

Alex stared at him. There was an increasing sadness inside of her. Whatever the other part of her had been doing in her absence she felt pretty certain it went beyond what Gene was ready to share. She placed her fingers gently on his shoulder.

"I never stopped thinking of you," she said quietly, "I never stopped fighting to get home. That's one thing I do remember."

Another memory came to her. It was vague at first; the buzzing of a needle and a sore sensation moving intensely back and forth on her skin. Slowly she reached down and pulled her top up a little. Her fingers brushed the skin of her stomach, and there it was – the mark, the familiar scar, the part of her that she'd lamented the lack of in 2011. She gave a little sigh of relief and looked down at it. She closed her eyes for a second, thinking about the tattoo on her 'other' body.

"Kim was right," she whispered, "it doesn't travel with you."

"What doesn't?" asked Gene, "yer marbles?"

Alex gave a sentimental smile as she fingered the rough skin beneath her fingers. She wondered what the other part of her would think if she ever awoke and found herself branded with ink.

"Nothing," she said quietly. She looked down with a curious frown. "Have I been losing weight?"

"I told you to eat yer bloody pink wafers, woman," said Gene.

Alex looked at him. Her tongue ran across her lips as she stared and a flicker of a smile crossed her face. She let her fingers wander into his hair and said quietly,

"I can think of something more substantial I'd rather have inside me."

Her bluntness surprised him. It was usually the kind of thing he would say.

"Looks like I'm rubbing off on you after all," he said.

Alex gave a giggle.

"Sounds like something else I was going to suggest," she said.

Gene looked at her, her eyes deep and alluring, the playful smile across her face, her body twitching with anticipation as she thought about it. He swallowed. Nothing was happening.

He blinked and tried to focus on the body he'd been starved of all that time.

But all he could see was Keats smothered all over it.

_Fuck!_

The image wouldn't go away, and as he started at her, her own features slowly seemed to morph into his. He shook his head a little and gave a growl of frustration. Still nothing was happening.

_Shit!_

"Suitcases," he said, getting to his feet.

"Uh – pardon?" she frowned.

"Left me suitcases in Simon's spaceship," he mumbled, "I'd better get them before he replaces my clothes with Starbug t-shirts, don't think that'll impress the super."

Alex stared at him in disbelief. She couldn't believe it. He had never turned her down before, _never._ Not even after the whole _green body paint disaster _of 1992. Her eyes were fixed upon him and he just had to turn away.

"Now?" she challenged.

"Got to catch him before he pisses off to a science fiction convention or something," Gene mumbled.

Alex shook her head a little as her mouth hung open.

"But I thought –" she trailed off a little as she watched him pulling on his coat. Her brow crinkled into a frown. "I want you, Gene."

Gene froze with his back to her. He closed his eyes, his expression tense and anguished. His heart hurt so much he thought it was literally tearing in two. He gave a quiet sigh of despair and said,

"I'll be back, Bolly. Give me some space."

"Space?" Alex cried, "Gene, you've had weeks of space, and so have I! Thinking of coming home to you… it was all that kept me going."

But Gene was already opening the door.

"Get some rest," he told her as he disappeared through, silently cursing his manhood for going on strike. As he closed the door behind him he muttered a string of swear words under his breath before storming down the stairs. "You picked the right bloody time to picket, you bastard," he mumbled, "you'd better get over it by the time I get back from Shoebury's or it's the Bobbitt for you!"

**~xXx~**

**A/N: Just the one chapter tonight but 2 tomorrow and 2 on Monday!**


	85. Chapter 44, 1995: Lugubre

_**A/N: Don't think I have gone crazy! I am posting three – yes, three – chapters tonight. You see, I had a choice between posting the usual 2 and being very, very mean, or posting 3 and being nice. Well, the decision was swung by vising The Railway Arms today (although it wasn't actually open… Heaven is closed on Sundays! Who knew?) and getting all sentimental about A2A and getting all riled up about Alex being dead all over again so I decided on a triple measure. Enjoy!**_

**Chapter Forty Four**

"Are you serious about this?"

Simon looked incredulously at the shopping list Kim had handed him.

"I told you I was going to teach you how to drink," she said.

"I'm not sure about this," said Simon, "you just got out of hospital."

"So we have something to celebrate.," Kim pointed out.

"What about your painkillers?" asked Simon.

Kim poked her tongue out to prove her maturity.

"I'm not taking those,." She said, "I'm keeping them for when I get my tattoo next week."

Simon wondered if she had the little blue and white ones he liked so much in 1983. No doubt they were probably banned for causing their taker to have six heads by now.

"I'm still not sure about this," he said, "you lost a lot of blood."

"And you lose a lot of credibility every time you pass out from drinking his scotch," Kim told him, "now do you want to learn to drink or not?"

Simon wasn't sure about this, Not at all. But Kim was pretty insistent, and it _was_ nearly Christmas.

"Fine," he said, pocketing the list, "but this sounds like a bit of overkill."

"Trust me," said Kim.

"Do we really need that many varieties of beer?" Simon challenged.

"We need to find one you'll like," said Kim.

"What about one with no alcohol that tastes like water?" said Simon.

Kim sighed.

"Just get the stuff," she told him

Simon checked the list again.

"Do we need all these snacks?" he asked, "I'm not planning to run a pub you know."

"Look, the cheese and onion is obligatory," said Kim.

"And what about all these painkillers?"

"You'll be grateful for them tomorrow."

Simon gave a sigh. He couldn't believe she was talking him into this.

"Alright," he said, "but I'm warning you – any vomit stains are _your_ responsibility to clean up. Alright?"

Kim smiled.

"I knew you'd see sense," she said, "deal!"

Simon gave a deep sigh as he walked to the door but before he could leave there was a frantic knocking and he opened it to find a distressed Gene on the doorstep.

"Gene?" he frowned, "What's wrong?"

Gene stared at Simon, not sure what to say for a few moments. Finally he opened his mouth and began hesitantly,

"Missed yer unique brand of nerddom."

Simon blinked.

"Seriously, Gene, what's wrong?" Simon knew Gene didn't have that expression on his face without a good reason.

Gene looked at Simon, then invited himself in. He walked through the lounge and cleared his throat.

"Stringer, you want to make yourself scarce?"

"Piss off!" cried Kim, "I just came out of hospital!" She bit her lip and backtracked, "I mean, erm…. Thank you, sir, but I'm comfortable where I am."

"She _did _just get out of hospital," frowned Simon, "don't make her move."

Gene turned to Simon, preparing to launch a sturdy put-down to put him in his place when suddenly all he could see was Keats, one hand pressed against his chest, the other wiping the blood from his cheek. He gagged and spluttered and turned his eyes to Kim, but despite having no visuals for that particular coupling he was still picturing a slobbering Jimbo all over her.

"Bleugh!" Gene turned away and made a noise of revulsion, "he doesn't just stick little Jimbo in whoever he picks, he sticks himself in yer brain as well!"

"Gene, what the hell are you talking about?" Simon demanded.

Gene glanced from one to the other.

"What _is_ the matter with you rampant lot?" he cried, "you all want to get it on with Jimbo? Should I ask everyone to form an orderly queue? Whose turn is it next, Vickery's?"

Simon stared at Gene, his mouth slightly open in bafflement, then he glanced at Kim and said,

"Erm, maybe this is a man to man situation," he said tactfully, "any chance you feel like a walk?"

"The only place I am walking is to the bathroom after I've filled my bladder with lager," said Kim.

Simon sighed a little and had to think fast. There were few things he could tempt Kim with. But he did have one blackmail chip against her. One deep, dark secret he'd almost forgotten about.

"Go and lay down in my bedroom," he said.

"Why would I want to go and lay in your bedroom?" Kim pulled a face.

"You might want to watch what I recorded last night," Simon told her.

Kim almost choked through laughter.

"I doubt you've got any videos to interest me," she said.

"Are you sure you _want to believe_ that…?" Simon said pointedly, raising an eyebrow.

"Fine," she said quickly, getting awkwardly to her feet and grabbing her blanket and magazine, "but no flapping your lips. And it had better be a good one."

"Colony," Simon called after her.

"Colon what?" frowned Gene.

Simon gave a little smile.

"Nothing," he said. He was rather pleased Kim had that hidden secret, and not just for blackmail purposes. It gave them something in common. He waited until she'd closed the door then turned back to Gene with a sigh. "Well?"

Gene took a deep breath and tried to compose himself. It was rare that he lost his cool but this had thrown it straight out of the window. He put his hands in his pockets and shuffled a little.

"I, err," he cleared his throat, "I've got a bit of a problem. Seeing demons."

Simon frowned.

"How much have you had to drink?" he demanded.

"Stone cold sober, Simon," Gene told him, "maybe that's the problem."

"What are you talking about?" Simon couldn't work out what was going on.

Gene felt his skin burning across his face. He didn't blush. Gene Hunt did _not_ blush. But there was a first time for everything. In fact, that was_ two_ firsts in one day now.

"I'm having a problem," he coughed a little, "sending an officer in."

Simon just stared at him blankly.

"What case it this?" he asked.

Gene's face began to grow angry. He didn't want to have to spell this out any more clearly.

"I have failed to be an upstanding citizen," he said, but still the blank expression still stared back at him. "The general is laying down on the job. The flag's gone up and I can't salute." Simon's expression became more confused and his eyes increasingly glazed over with every euphemism Gene tried until he grew so humiliated and frustrated that he cried, _"I can't __**do**__ anything because I keep seeing Jimbo giving her one!"_

Simon stared and blinked. Then, like the rising of the sun, enlightenment crossed his face.

"Oh," he said. There was a second's pause. "_Ohh…._" Despite his very sincere attempts to fight it, the corners of his mouth twitched upwards over and over into a smirk that he tried desperately to hide. Every time he forced them back down they twitched up again.

"If I see your mouth even _think_ about grinning then you're going to be in the dole queue by Christmas," Gene warned.

Simon forced himself to stop the smirking.

"No, no, Gene," he said, clearing his throat, "of course not. It's very serious. Very serious indeed." He coughed and did his best to keep a straight face. "Well, it happens to every man. Apparently."

"I warned you about that sentence before!" Gene said a little threateningly, but Simon hadn't finished.

"It's not something I've ever had a problem with personally, but -," he continued.

"No, I noticed that," Gene said crossly.

Simon recalled his 'trouser tent' incident from a few days before and found his face turning a deep shade of crimson. Suddenly it wasn't so funny any more.

"Yes, alright," he said tightly.

"In fact, it was a bit bloody difficult to avoid it!"

"Can't we forget about the whole thing?" Simon cried.

"I wish I could, I can still see it in me nightmares!" Gene shuddered, "and besides, it's documented in the gents, all over the lavvy walls like a horny Bayeux bloody tapestry."

Simon froze.

"It's not," he said quickly.

"In cartoon format," Gene told him, "someone's got real talent there."

Simon began to flush a deeper shade.

"Shut up," he mumbled.

"Of course, they embellished the size a bit."

"Shut up."

"And the use of the tent pegs…"

"Alright!" Simon cried, "I get it, I'm sorry… I'm sorry, I never meant to…" he paused and sighed. "I _know_ it's not funny. Really." But already the thought of Gene failing to send the general in was making him smirk again. He tried to force the smile from his face and looked at him seriously. "Gene… the Keats thing…" he gave a sigh. "Does she know?"

Gene shook his head very slowly.

"She's no idea," he said.

Simon felt heavy hearted.

"You've got to tell her," he said quietly, "as hard as it will be –"

"Was that another dig?" Gene demanded.

"What – _no!"_ Simon cried. He shook his head with a sigh. "As _difficult_ as it will be, you have to tell her. She has a right to know."

"It'll kill her, Simon," Gene said grimly. He sank onto the sofa and stared at his hands. "It'll rip 'er heart out."

"But she has to _know."_

"How would you feel if you found out yer body have been off getting poked and prodded my Jimbo's love truncheon while yer brain was sixteen years away?" cried Gene.

Simon swallowed.

"I know it will be hard for both of you," he said quietly, "but it's better than hiding the truth."

"How's she going to feel?" Gene shook his head, "it would be like if _you_ woke up and found some straight Shoebury had inhabited yer body and been enjoying a spot of bed bouncing with Metal Mickey in there."

"OK, before you wander into parallel universe territory," Simon began, fully aware that he would be only too _delighted _to discuss the finer points of any parallel universes with Gene or anyone else for that matter, "stop. Calm down."

"I'd be calmer if I didn't have an extended version of Jimbo's bonk-fest playing on a perpetual loop in me 'ead," Gene fumed.

Simon breathed in deeply.

"It wasn't your Alex," he said quietly.

"It was still her body," Gene cried, "the body she was practically begging for me to –"

"_Please_ don't finish that sentence," Simon held up his hand.

Gene shook his head in frustration.

"When I looked at her all I could see was _him."_ His face screwed up in fury, "arse bouncing up and down like a bloody bat and ball on a bit o' elastic.

"Then for God's sake, you have to tell her what happened," Simon implored him, "otherwise she's going to think you're rejecting her!"

Gene wished he had his flask with him but it was sitting on his desk at work. _Shit_. He considered biting his nails as a replacement but didn't think it would have the same effect.

"You know what pisses me off most of all?" he spat, "him going all cinematic. That video was going to keep him going for months, wasn't it? Bloody tape would get worn out long before his wrist did."

Simon cringed.

"Your turn of phrase is as eloquent as ever."

Gene looked at Simon with a darkness across his face.

"He could have given her anything, Simon. We both herd him. He doesn't believe in protection. One thing him and the Pope agree on."

"I don't think he's had much of a sexual career, Gene" Simon shook his head, "Look at him – he has to turn on the gas and air to get anyone tempted."

"He's already had a bloody member of the dungaree brigade!" cried Gene, "if you've got meat and two veg stashed in yer pants and still pull a dyke, you can probably pull just about anyone!"

"Then it's even more reason to tell her," Simon told him firmly.

Gene hung his head. His initial reaction to the tape had been untamed fury. Now the emotional aftermath was coming forth, and he didn't like anything that made him consider girly feelings.

"What is he's given 'er something else an' all?" he mumbled.

Simon frowned.

"A present?" his mind wasn't quite on the subject.

"What if he's still crying to create a herd of mini-Jims?" Gene said with a kind of anger that Simon had never heard in his voice before, "I always had a sodding great question mark over the fine art of reproduction in this world, Simon. Never knew if it was possible. Then he started spreading his demon seed all over Fenchurch."

Simon rubbed his face roughly and closed his eyes. He didn't know how many more ways there were to say it.

"Gene, _tell her._ Tell Alex. It'll be the worst thing you will _ever_ have to do –"

"Apart from taking a piss while looking at the diagrams of your trouser tent," Gene interrupted.

"But there is no _fucking_ way you can keep this from her." He shook his head. "Shit, Gene, if you love and respect Alex the way you _clearly_ seem to then you have to tell her."

Gene stared at Simon. He knew absolutely everything that Simon was telling him but it didn't make it any easier. He felt acid rising in his chest just thinking about forcing out those words. _Shit, _why did he leave his flask at work? He needed Dutch courage more than ever. He got to his feet and plodded to the door rather like some kind of sulky child who had been told to go to bed early, then looked back at Simon.

"Going to the station first," he said.

"What for?"

"Left my flask behind. Need some strength. Top up my guts," said Gene, "it's not going to be easy, Simon."

Simon looked down.

"I know," he said quietly.

Gene gave a nod, opened the door and began to leave, then at the last minute glanced back.

"Simon?"

"Hmm?"

Gene's expression changed.

"You mention me off-duty policeman to anyone and you'll be picking staples out yer arse for a fortnight."

Simon flinched a little.

"Duly noted," he said.


	86. Chapter 45, 1995: Disjunct

**A/N: Chapter 2 of 3 tonight!**

**Chapter Forty Five**

Alex paced the lounge. Forty five minutes ago Gene left to collect his suitcases. It was five minutes to Simon's flat, maximum. What was Gene doing? _Making_ the suitcases first? She glanced at the clock again as though she could make the hands go backwards, make it so that Gene had been home half an hour ago and they were sitting down to dinner. There were just three things she wanted upon her return home – a hot bath, a decent meal, and Gene. If the three things could somehow be interlinked then so much the better.

One and a half cold cups of tea sat on the table. There were several discarded pink wafers around the room. Her stomach made faint gurgling noises reminding her it was time to eat but her worry overrode them. Besides, what happened to their wonderful first meal home together?

As the time moved on and she realised Gene was now ten minutes away from being at Simon's for an hour her worry got the better of her and despite feeling washed out she pulled on her coat and prepared for a walk in the cold December air.

~xXx~

Simon crashed through the doors with bags of bottles and snacks.

"You got everything then?" Kim's eyes lit up as he put them heavily on the floor. He couldn't carry them a step further.

"They must think I'm having the biggest Christmas party in Fenchurch," Simon mumbled as he shut the door. He noticed Kim had brought the end of the X Files tape into the lounge and was still watching it. "Ooh, I see you're opening up about your secret now?"

Kim scowled. One thing she did not like was being pigeonholed with Simon over her taste in television shows.

"I _only_ watch it because of Gillian Anderson," she mumbled.

"_Oooh, Scully, come and rescue me from this great big alien monster!_" Simon put on a fake voice and continued to tease.

"If that was supposed to be me you aimed three octaves too high," Kim told him, switching off the television.

"I bet you bought that copy of FHM as well, didn't you?" Simon probed.

Kim scowled and a blush travelled across her cheeks. She _hadn't _bought that copy of FHM; the one with Gillian Anderson in the alluring black lingerie. She had wanted to, oh _God_, had she wanted to. She's stood in the doorway of WH Smith every single day staring at it and trying to build up the courage to take it to the counter. But her young, teenage, closeted self wouldn't let her. As ironies went, the strongest one of her life was the day she finally plucked up the courage to buy it she found it had gone from the shelves.

That was one of the biggest regrets of her life.

Hmm.

But that edition was only a couple of months from hitting the shelves now. She bit her lip as her mind started working overtime.

At long last that magazine would be hers.

She had been lost in a world of her own for so long that she hadn't even noticed Simon unpacking all the beer and snacks onto the table. She shook herself a little to escape her daydreams of Gillian Anderson in lingerie and studied the selection with approval.

"You got it all then?" she asked.

"You could sail a boat on this," said Simon.

A frantic knocking at the door caused them both to frown.

"It's probably someone turning up for the party," said Kim.

"Oh great – gatecrashers," sighed Simon, "no, probably Gene with more comments about my 'tent' graffiti." He opened the door and found a cold, pale Alex standing outside. "Alex? What are you doing here? Are you OK?"

Alex peered inside.

"Is Gene still here?" she asked.

Simon bit his lip.

"Hasn't he gone home yet?" he asked.

"Obviously not," frowned Alex. She studied the array of alcoholic beverages on the table and frowned. "Are you _sure_ Gene's not here?"

Simon sighed. He was regretting the whole 'learning to drink' thing now.

"Look, I think he went to pick something up from the station," he said.

Alex frowned. That seemed a little strange. But then, Gene had been behaving a little strangely too.

"Thanks, Simon," she said quietly, "I'll go and see if he's still there."

Simon looked a little nervous as she walked away.

"Are you sure you're OK?" he asked.

Alex gave a thin smile and rubbed her arms to warm them up.

"Fine," she said quietly and carried on walking.

Simon glanced at Kim nervously as he closed the door.

"I think we might end up with one of those two sleeping on the sofa again by tonight," he said a little anxiously.

"Why? What happened earlier?" asked Kim.

Simon gave a sigh.

"I'd tell you but I value my backside too much," he said.

~xXx~

The walk to the station took only minutes but it felt like a lifetime. Not only was she weak and tired but her anxiety was increasing. Simon's manner had worried her further and the strange turn of events had unnerved her. Why would Gene be going to work at that time of the evening? Especially when he knew she was waiting for him.

She felt nervous as all eyes seemed to turn to her. Stepping through the doors of Fenchurch East for the first time since her 'other' self had caused her to be thrown out by security, she could feel eyes and stares of surprise aimed in her direction although she couldn't completely comprehend why. It was with some trepidation that she took the stairs up a few floors and arrived in CID. It was mostly deserted, one or two familiar faces greeting her warmly or pointing and muttering, but no Gene.

She tried his office. The door opened gracefully for her but the room was empty.

"Gene?" she said nervously. Even though she knew he wasn't there she still felt the need to ask. Slowly she stepped inside, looked around and walked to the desk. His flask sat upon it, drained and empty with a half bottle of scotch beside it, ready for a refill. His coat sat on the back of the chair so he was still on the premises somewhere.

Despite her anxiety, being on familiar ground warmed her heart. This was home. She could feel it. A little smile graced her face. Everything here was as it should be. She tiptoed around the desk, the familiar paperwork bringing her a sense of comfort. Her fingers brushed the wood. It helped her to feel grounded. She finally felt as though her feet were squarely on the floor.

Her legs felt heavy. She was growing frustrated at how much of a hit her body had taken. She sank down into a seat and flicked on the television set. She would just have to wait until Gene returned and then she could find out what the hell was going on.

She flicked through a few channels, the mid-nineties cable bearing no resemblance to the seemingly never ending channels on Sky in 2011. She almost missed those. How long until the BBC launched rolling news? She was already dreading_ 2011_ rolling around again and seeing Evan's beard all over the news once more.

Her attention was caught by a tape poking out of the slot, as though it had come to an end, rewound and ejected while no one was there. She knelt down and took it out. There were no markings on it, no labels at all. Curiously she pushed it back into the machine and it started to play immediately. Someone had taken the erase protect tab off so whatever it was it must have been pretty important.

It took a couple of seconds for the screen to clear and for the action to begin - and _action_ it was.

_"Jim –"_

She hadn't recognised the figures at first but she recognised her own voice. From there it was only a moment or so before the rest began to fall into place. She recognised that room, the same deep, dark room that Keats had lured a Fenchurch East gathering into and forced Simon to spill the truth about Gene's world at gunpoint. She knew that room. But she certainly didn't know what was happening on the screen.

She felt as though she was trapped in a nightmare, watching helplessly as someone else in her body allowed _him_ to take her over to the desk, ridding her of her clothes, and laying her upon it.

_"Alex,"_ she heard him breathe, "_I've waited a long time for this."_

And with that her mind brought back a _true_ nightmare, the nightmare thoughts that had plagued her in 2011. Watching on the screen while her mind played her back a slow-motion account of the lies he wanted her to believe, it was like getting it in stereo.

Her hands drew quickly to her mouth and she gasped in horror and devastation as she watched him take what he wanted – what he'd wanted for all those years.

_"Wait,"_ her own voice came from the tape "_we can't – it's not safe…"_

_"Shhh… what does it matter if it's all in here? I'm just in your mind, you told me yourself. Give yourself what you want just this once."_

She cried out in anguish as the truth began to dawn upon her. She saw echoes of her own behaviour back in 1981, before she understood the world, before she took her life seriously. She recalled her libido ruling her on more than one occasion. Danny Moore, some random yuppie, she even had designs on _Evan_ at one point. This was no different, this was exactly the same, except –

Except the other _her_ had chosen the very worst possible person to fall for.

As though frozen in shock she had no choice but to watch Keats as he pounded away at her, his movements becoming harder, his face contorting further in twisted ecstasy with every thrust until she couldn't take another second of the depraved video and something within her shattered. She yelled and screamed, an ear-splitting scream that came from deep within her. Like a reflex she got to her feet and despite her weakened state her legs took her fast from the room, out of CID and down to the exit where she ran from the building with tears rolling down her face and horror in her heart.

It hadn't been 'her' but it was still her body, the vessel she'd been so desperate to return to. The skin she was in, the frame running from the scene as fast as it could. The body she was in had been used and tainted, _she_ had let him do what Alex had stopped him from doing all those years before. Now she had to live with that, she couldn't peel away her body and find a new one. She couldn't scrub away the knowledge that he'd had her, he'd taken her and explored every inch of her, and she couldn't do a damn thing about it.

As she ran, a new horror dawned upon her. The tape was in Gene's office. He'd seen it. He'd _watched_ it. He _knew._

_Oh,_ no wonder… no wonder he didn't want to touch her. No wonder he couldn't go near her. She wouldn't blame him if he never wanted to touch her again. _She_ wouldn't if she was in his shoes.

She felt a scream coming from within her but she was in too much of a state to even hear it. Her eyes were blurred with tears and her body ached as she ran back to her flat, threw herself through the doorway and cried to herself over and over again.

~xXx~

"Bloody tea," mumbled Gene. Two large cups of the stuff had done a number on his bladder and an urgent trip to the gents had been required. Unfortunately the graffiti about Simon and his trouser tent hadn't exactly helped him on his quest and it had been several minutes before he could concentrate enough to find relief. He was sure the artwork had been added to since last time and one of the diagrams seemed to have given Simon two sets of tackle.

He slouched through CID and back to his office to collect his coat and refill his flask before setting off home. He may as well have been led to the gallows the way he felt. The first thing that caught his attention was the fuzz of static on the TV and the whirring of a tape as it rewound. He looked at it, then around the room. There was no one in sight. With a click and a flutter the tape ejected. Gene stepped forward and removed it from the slot. Although unmarked, he knew instantly what it was. Instantly he felt rage growing inside of him and he gripped the tape so hard it almost cracked in two.

He threw the door open and barked into CID,

"Who's been in here?"

A few shocked faces glanced up.

"Only DCI Drake," said Bammo, "good to see her looking so well."

Gene froze. He felt certain his heart stopped beating and ice took it over for just a few seconds. Something began to burn inside of him, a fear, a desperation, a dread.

How could he have been so stupid? How could he leave the tape where she could find it? But he wasn't to know she would turn up at the station. \Why the hell would she?

He remembered watching the tape and storming out to threaten Keats's dangly bits with a blunt object. The tape… he left it as it was, playing away to an audience of zero until it reached the end and rewound. With the events that unfolded he had forgotten about the tape completely, even though the contents of it were constantly on his mind. He'd barely been in his office since that moment.

What was done had been done. He couldn't dwell on that. He needed to focus on making things right.

He grabbed his coat and ran for the door, stopped, back-tracked, grabbed the bottle of scotch and raced back out of the office.

She'd seen it. She knew.

There was no taking it back. All Gene could do was to pray that he could fix what had already been broken before it shattered beyond repair.


	87. Chapter 46, 1995: Ritornello

**A/N: The last of tonight's bumper batch of 3 chapters!**

**Chapter Forty Six**

As her tears and screams died down and her anger gave way to pure exhaustion Alex walked gauntly through to the bedroom. She felt like a ghost, a shadow of the person she purported to be. Her body had been tainted and now, after watching it for herself, so had her mind. How would she ever get over seeing such a thing?

She walked despondently to the full length mirror in her room and stared at her refection. The first thing she saw was the wound; the bullet wound on her forehead. It wasn't a scar yet. It was still a wound. Barely healing, neglected by the other 'her', the dressing removed too soon and follow-up appointments ignored. It was blatantly obvious and, thanks to its poor care, would most likely leave a far worse scar than the one on her 2011 body.

She swallowed and tried to pull her hair down over it but her quiff had been so severely lacquered to stay put that the hair wouldn't more in the right direction and kept pointing backwards, expecting her to pin it up with a clip.

Her fingers moved to the sides of the cut and she ran them down from root to tip. She knew now, she knew inside why she had that hairstyle. She understood. The memory was still buried but it was clear who had orchestrated it. He'd probably been the one holding the scissors. It was like taking a trip back through time – again – back to 1983 and to a very dark time, the time she and Gene had lost the trust between them. It was a time she didn't care to relive.

Seeing that style again brought it all back to her – the darkness, the suspicion; Ray, Chris and Shaz; the stars… it brought a fresh line of tears to her face.

She looked at her eyes. Ignoring their red haze and the tears, the remnants of heavy make-up still lining her eyes from where the nurses had not quite been able to remove it all. 80s style make-up with 90s cosmetics – it would probably take industrial strength cleaner to remove it all.

She looked at her face, studied it. It wasn't the flawless skin of her 2011 body but it was strange… her little lines weren't as bad as she'd imagined them to be. She supposed in her mind things were worse than they actually were. Whoever looks in the mirror and truly sees what the rest of the world sees anyway?

Her skin was so pale, it lacked the rosy glow of sheer happiness that she had been used to seeing every day in Gene's world before the shooting and there were deeper cheekbones appearing where it seemed she'd lost a little weight. Her eyes were sunken and surrounded by dark circles. With all she knew now she wondered if her eyes would ever sparkle again.

Her gaze travelled down to her body as she shrugged off her top and let it drop to the floor. With a frown she noted her cleavage was a little less spectacular than usual. Maybe not by much but enough that she noticed. She remembered Gene's comments about her looking scrawny and gave a sigh. Oh, he was not going to be impressed with that. That was, if he ever wanted to come near her again.

Her body was scarred, all the marks that told the story of her survival. Those marks had bothered her sometimes but being in a body without them in 2011 had felt strange and unnatural. She felt as though someone had stolen a big part of her life away from her, like she had lost a part of her history.

And there it was, back where it was supposed to be, the scar on her stomach from Gene's rogue bullet. She never thought she could miss a scar so very much. She knew how much Gene hated that mark, not for the imperfection but for the terrible guilt associated with it. She hoped she could explain to him how she felt about it, show him a different side to it. Should she tell him about the way she'd recreated the mark on her 2011 body? What on earth would Gene say if he knew she had a tattoo? Oh, probably adapt some of his Kim-directed insults for her, she decided. Or maybe not. Maybe he'd even _like_ the idea. She started wondering about getting another tattoo. _Taking back her body_. She liked the thought of that.

She'd definitely lost weight. She seemed to have lost something else too. That energy about her, almost like a glow that she used to exude. She used to feel so womanly and sensual. Now she felt like she was still a half-empty vessel; she was back in her body but something had faded away. She had been through so much – _too_ much.

She stared at herself, abhorred the images that flashed through her mind, the tale the terrible tape had spun her. All she could see when she looked at herself now was _him;_ all over her, taking what he wanted and robbing her of the relief she'd felt at the realisation her memories had been put there by that most evil of all men.

How could she get over this? How could she ever get past what she had seen? How could she live in that skin?

Her eyes spilled over as her lip trembled a little. Her anguish was building up to an unbearable degree and the screams were in danger of coming forth again as she wanted to rip away at her skin, to peel it away, to leave the body he'd defiled.

The opening of the front door caused her to stop and spin around. A jolt of fear ran through her; crazy thoughts that it could be Keats back for seconds, or Layton following her to 1995 but at the doorway appeared Gene; his face as dark as she had ever seen, his eyes troubled but his stance strong and certain. Her eyes opened wide was she saw him but the rest of her froze to the spot. How could she face him, now that she knew? How could she look him in the eye? How could he bear to look at _her?_

"Gene –" she could barely get one word out and even then she had no idea how she was going to follow that up. What could she say? What could anyone say? That she was sorry? That she understood he couldn't come near her? That she would hide away somewhere, he'd never have to see her again?

"You saw it," his voice was low and tense.

She bit her lip and stared at him. Biting her lip was a nervous habit she'd picked up from Robin. She knew that. It gave her an excuse not to talk, but after several moments of silence she realised she would have to say _something._

"I saw it," she whispered.

Gene stared at her. She could see him swallow.

"Well?"

She hadn't been expecting that of all words.

"Well _what?" _her tone was a little outraged.

He carried on staring at her seriously.

"Are you OK?" he asked her.

Alex stared back. Her mouth fell open a little but she wasn't sure what to say. Eventually her eyes opened a little wider and she said,

"No – no, of course I'm not alright."

Gene's eyes seemed to glisten. She'd never seen him cry. She didn't want there to be a first time.

"What are you thinking?" he asked, worry in his voice.

His questions were not what she was expecting. Her face became awash with confusion and astonishment.

"I'm thinking that I just want to stop existing," she whispered, "I want to vanish. I want to not have to look in the mirror and see…"

Gene gulped as he watched her trail away before the end of the sentence. He knew full well what she meant. Looking in the mirror, she saw the self-same thing that he saw as he'd looked at her before.

He didn't see that now.

"Bolly –"

"I can't stand this," Alex's voice broke as the words came flooding out, "I can't handle it, being in this skin. I just want to rip it all away." Involuntarily she started scratching at the skin on her arms. It was either a nervous action or some subconscious attempt to strip away the body that his touch had sullied. "I can't stand it, to _know –"_

"Bolly," he stepped towards her now as she stepped from one side to the other, trying to work out how to cope.

"It's no wonder you walked away from me, Gene," she shook her head and looked at him in all honesty, "I'd have done that too. If I could walk away from myself I would."

"_Bolly,"_ he grasped her wrists and pulled them away from her arms. She struggled in his grip and tried to pull her arms away. He was surprised by her strength considering all she bad been through and it took a while to bring her limbs under control.

"_Listen_ to me, Alex," he stared her right in the eye, pressing her up against the mirror to stop her from struggling further, "You are not him. You are not even _her."_

"But it was my body…"

"_Was._ It happened and we can't change it. Main thing is, we don't let it destroy us."

"It's already destroying me," Alex told him.

"Fight it," he said gruffly, "Not going to let him destroy you. Not going to let him destroy _us."_

"What if it's too late?" Alex could hardly speak, her energy fading and the overwhelming anguish taking her voice from her.

"It's not."

"You walked away!"

"I'm not walking away now."

She looked into his eyes. It was true; he wasn't.

"But you will," she whispered, "won't you? Every time you touch me. Every time we…" she flinched at the thought of him reeling from her, "how can you bear to touch me?"

"I'm touching you now."

Once again, it was true. He was.

"It'll keep coming back."

"Then we'll keep pushing it away," Gene told her.

Alex's head shook a little and she struggled to think of a way to express the terrible churning inside.

"It feels like torture," she whispered.

"It'll get better."

"He's tainted me."

"It wasn't you," for the first time Gene really believed and understood those words, understood the difference. He pushed himself a little closer to her, still pressed against the mirror. "It wasn't _you._"

"But to him –"

Gene shook his head.

"Even he couldn't make himself believe it," he told her firmly, "he tried. Then he looked in her eyes, and he could see."

"That it wasn't me," Alex whispered.

Gene watched her blink. Her eyes suddenly seemed brighter. Just a shade, but enough to notice. He could never forget what he'd seen on the tape but he could separate it out now. Even if Keats had taken what he wanted on the outside, it still wasn't Alex. It wasn't _Bolly_. And even if he'd taken her on a basement desk then he would still never, ever know what it was like when Bolly was in control of that vital piece of living, breathing equipment.

_Oh, hello._

He didn't seem to have _that_ problem any more, all of a sudden. He began to feel a bit guilty about threatening it with the whole Bobbitt thing. He looked her in the eye. He could see she felt it too.

"He wants to take you away from me one way or another, Bols," he said quietly, "don't let him succeed."

Alex stared at him. The hesitation had gone now. That look in his eye had disappeared.

"What do you see now, Gene?" she whispered, "when you look at me?"

There was only one thing he saw now, and it wasn't Jimbo or his backside going up and down. Perhaps it wasn't the knowing that had been getting in the way, maybe it was the secrecy. Perhaps it was the fact that _she_ didn't know and he had no right to be keeping it from her. A long time ago they're realised that keeping secrets from each other was very bad for their world. This was a timely reminder.

"You," Gene told her, "only you."

That was what she needed to hear. Those were the words that helped her – just a little – to fight the demon that had made its way very firmly into her mind. Those were the words that helped her to chase it away enough to let herself move forward and fall into the arms of the one she'd been thinking about the whole time they had been apart. From there, it didn't take long for Gene to finish what she had started; stripping her down until nothing stood in the way of him reclaiming what had always been his. He saw nothing but Alex before him. Nothing could taint that beautiful sight. Nothing ever would. Not now. The truth had stripped that terrible act of its power, and although it was something they would need to work through together for the longest time it was never going to destroy what could never be broken.

It didn't stand a chance in hell.


	88. Chapter 47, 1995: Sforzando

_**A/N: Thank you so much to everyone who is continuing to read and review this story. I really appreciate the support and encouragement. This fic is now past the 300,000 word point – I am just astounded, I never imagined it would grow so big. That you've stuck with it all this time is wonderful – thank you! X**_

_**Tonight is a bit more light-hearted than the last few days! Two chapters tonight and one tomorrow! **_

_**~xXx~**_

**Chapter Forty Seven**

Simon watched half in horror and half in awe as Kim opened a can of lager and chugged half of it straight down. His mouth dropped open just slightly. He supposed he was seeing the ladette Kim of old for the first time. She had already started to shun that lifestyle when he arrived in 1995, a choice that was hurried by her miscarriage and the realisation that this was not a world to be taken lightly.

She gave a deep belch that wouldn't have been out of place coming from a teenage boy and glanced at Simon.

"Go on," she said.

Simon looked at her in shock.

"I hope you don't expect me to do _that,"_ he said.

"No, just try a bloody beer," she told him, "I'm just getting a head start. You're not used to alcohol. You'll be falling off your chair before you've finished your first mouthful."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence," Simon said crossly, opening a can and reluctantly taking a little sip that was made mostly of foam. He coughed and spluttered a bit and looked accusingly at Kim. "I thought I was supposed to like this more than scotch!" he said, wiping his mouth with his sleeve.

"And I thought you said you weren't going to wear _that_ jumper," Kim said accusingly, "looks like we both lied."

Simon pulled a face. Despite detesting the taste he downed a couple of mouthfuls of the cold lager. It didn't sting as much as Gene's scotch but the bubbles seemed to shoot right up his nose and made him sneeze.

"Why have I become your pet project anyway?" he asked.

"It's my first Christmas away from my family," said Kim, "my first one away from Sandra for three years too. If I'm going to be stuck with you then I'm going to need someone to get bladdered with."

Simon closed his eyes for just a second. _Shit._ It was going to be his first without Robin, too. He'd somehow managed to forget about that for a while. The thought made him seek solace from the can and he took another couple of gulps. It was still a bit fizzy for his liking but at least it didn't make him sneeze this time.

"At what point am I supposed to start on the bar snacks?" he enquired.

"You'll know," said Kim. She threw the other half of her can down her throat, gave another grand belch and reached for a second can. Simon shook his head in disbelief.

"What are you _doing?"_ he cried, "I thought the point of beer was that it lasted longer, _you_ said."

"I told you, I need a head start," said Kim, "there's nothing worse than seeing someone else blotto while you're still sold cone stober."

"What?"

"What do you mean what?"

"Sold cone stober" Simon repeated, "You already _are_ pissed!"

"Don't be stupid."

"You're supposed to be the tough, hard-drinking ladette and you've lost the ability to speak five minutes after opening your can!"

Kim ignored him and opened up a second lager.

"You can mix words up without being pissed you know," she said.

Simon gave a chuckle. It was the first time he'd genuinely laughed in weeks.

"You've been in hospital, you've lost a ton of blood, you've not drunk heavily for weeks apart from your girls' night out with Lindsay – you're out of practice!" he hooted.

"I bloody am not!" Kim cried, furious with his accusation, "drink your beer!"

Simon tried to mask his laughter a little as he downed some more of the can and pulled a face at the taste of it. He could see Kim's eyes glazing over a bit. She wasn't quite the hard drinker she purported to be – not after a hospital stay and severe blood loss anyway.

"You were right," he said "This is going to be more fun than I thought."

~xXx~

"I thought you wouldn't –" Alex didn't finish her sentence. She didn't want to. And she didn't need to either. Gene already understood.

"I don't need locking up in a padded cell yet, Bols," he said, "course I bloody would."

"You didn't want to earlier," she reminded him.

Gene sighed.

"Yeah, well," he began gruffly, "turns out the truth matters a bit more to me than I realised." He paused. "But tell anyone that and you'll be getting half measures 'til Christmas."

Alex closed her eyes and she leaned against him. Being in her own bed was strange. There'd been a time she wasn't sure she would ever be back there again.

"I thought you would always see him when you looked at me," she whispered.

Gene had to admit that he'd feared the same thing. But the last half an hour had proven otherwise.

"I just see you, Bolly, he said "That's all. Wouldn't change a thing." He paused. "Might need a bit more padding back up top though."

Alex gave a grumpy sigh, but it was playful.

"Knew you'd pick on that," she said, "It's not my fault - my lodger must have forgotten how to eat or something."

"And how to dress," said Gene, "and not to trust strange men."

Alex sighed. She reached up and played with her hair. It was bothering her.

"This haircut," she whispered.

She didn't even need to ask the question.

"Keats," he said.

Alex flinched.

"Bastard," she whispered. She gave a deep sigh. "And all my highlights – gone."

Gene moved away a little so he could roll over and face her.

"Gave me a start finding that haircut back, I don't mind telling you," he said.

"Me too," Alex said quietly. She fell silent and thought for a little while. She breathed in deeply as her mind ran across a few ideas. "I suppose _The Rachel_ had run its course," she sighed, "it was probably time for a change."

"Not a change back to nineteen eighty three," frowned Gene.

"No, no way," Alex shook her head firmly, "tomorrow I am going straight to the hairdressers and sorting this out." She bit her lip and a sentimental smile came upon her face. "and I think I know what I am going to have done."

"Pink bouffant?" suggested Gene.

Alex ignored him.

"But I need to find a picture," she said. "And I think I know where to find one."

"I've told you Bolly, you can look in me tasteful gentleman's magazines any time you like but the nineteen sixties pornstar look isn't you."

Alex gave him a thump and shook her head.

"I do need a magazine though," she said, "I think Simon would probably have what I'm looking for."

"Bloody Shoe-boy?" cried Gene, "god's sake, woman, you're going to get the Red Dwarf logo shaved in the back of yer head, aren't you\?"

That earned Gene a second thump.

"Shut up and reacquaint yourself with a taste of Bolly," she told him.

As her hands slipped through his hair and he held her close he said to her,

"I meant it, Bolly. You're perfect. You don't have to change a thing."

Alex's smile flickered a little. Aside from the hair, there was one other change she was considering

"Gene?"

"Hmm?"

A pause.

"How do you feel about tattoos?"

~xXx~

"This is _shit_, Kim," Simon belched, "two cans and I don't feel a bloody thing."

Kim couldn't understand why. She was already pie-eyed and laughing at shoelaces and other sundries.

"Give it a chance, Simon," she said, "maybe you're getting more used to alcohol than we thought. You've been sucking at Gene's bottle every day…" she burst into a raucous laughter and slapped the table as she realised how bad that sounded, much to Simon's disapproval.

"I mean it, Kim"" he cried, "two bloody cans and I've not so much as slurred a syllable!"

He was expecting to have been finding the world and everything in it extremely amusing by now. Instead he was feeling pretty disappointed. His stomach was uncomfortably gassy, he'd yet to find a beer he could abide the taste of and his so-called teacher had already fallen off her chair twice.

"Come on, Simon, stick with it!" Kim urged, "just think of how proud the Guv will be when you toast him with a big old pint at Christmas!"

Simon reluctantly opened another can and took a sip. Nope, didn't like this one either. He gasped a little and shook his head.

"Admit it, Kim," he said, "This has gone totally wrong. It's a fucking disaster. I'm not feeling a thing, and I'm not _going_ to feel a thing. I might as well have been drinking tap water."

**X**

**Approximately two minutes later**

"…and three minutes after I arrived," Simon's raucous laughter almost shook the walls, "I was being carted off to hospital with three broken toes! One for every minute I'd been in nineteen eighty five!"

Kim clutched her middle as she laughed so hard that she almost made herself choke. The thought of Simon on his first trip to this world and his naïve arrival had amused her beyond compare.

"Alright," she sad when she had calmed down a little, "my turn. So, I showed up in the middle of an illegal rave."

"They were still going in ninety five?"

"Not as many, but some," said Kim, "anyway, I woke up in the corner of this baking hot warehouse, there were strobe lights and the music was so loud I thought my head would explode. That's when Gene and the others burst in and started rounding up the ravers. I didn't know what the fuck I was doing there, I'd just been stabbed and suddenly there I was." She took a swig from her can, "So Gene starts taking everyone's details and Malcolm is searching my pockets... he finds this ID and gives it to the Guv, and the next thing I know," she started laughing again, "he sayds, 'Bollocks, I've just arrested me new detective constable'!"

Simon could feel tears of laughter rolling down his cheeks. His stomach literally ached now from laughing so hard. How long had it been since that happened? He couldn't remember. He had to hold his guts as the laughter finally died down just a little. He thought he was going to split in two. He wiped the tears from his cheeks and looked back at Kim, a dumb grin across his face.

"Alright, so, you're the expert, Detective-Sergeant-slash-Constable-Stringer," he cleared his throat, "what does one do next when one is pissed?"

"Got to be time for truth or dare," said Kim.

Simon closed his eyes and groaned.

"Oh _no,_ not truth or dare," he complained, "I _hate_ that game."

"_Noooooooo, nooooooo,_ you'll like it when you're sloshed, I promise," Kim told him, wobbling a little and steadying herself on the kitchen table. She leaned forward a little. "It's a rite of passage, Simon. Can't be pissed without a good old fashioned game or druth or tare."

"A what?" frowned Simon.

"Words to that effect, said Kim.

Simon closed his eyes again. He sighed. He had a feeling he was going to regret this.

"Alright," he said, "we'll play. But you have to pick first."

Kim beamed.

"Deal!" she said.

Simon sighed. He sipped some more beer and scratched his head.

"Alright, so – truth or dare?"

"Truth," said Kim.

Simon bit his lip.

"OK," he began thoughtfully, "apart from Keats, have you cheated on your girlfriend since you've been here?"

Kim hesitated awkwardly.

"Define 'cheated'," she said.

Simon's eyes opened wide in alarm.

"So you have?" he asked.

"Only snogging!" Kim protested, "everyone snogs when they've had a few!"

"I hope this is not going to be part of my drinking initiation." Simon said warily.

Kim sighed.

"No, it's not."

"And _snogging_," Simon continued, "no one says 'snogging' any more. It went out with the nineties."

"Uh – hello!" cried Kim, pointing around the room as though to somehow indicate the year, like a giant neon '1995' could be seen floating in the air, "anyway, your turn – truth or dare?"

Simon literally cringed in fear.

"Truth?" he said cautiously.

Kim nodded.

"OK, I've got one," she said, "Was Robin your first?"

Somehow that wasn't the kind of question Simon had been expecting. He stared at her and blushed just a little.

"What?"

"Robin," said Kim, "was he your first?"

Simon could feel heat rising in his cheeks.

"That's none of your business," he said.

"This is _truth_ or dare!" cried Km, "do you not understand the concept?"

Simon began to wish he'd chosen 'dare.'

"Yes, Robin was my first," he said quietly.

"How old were you?" asked Kim.

"That's two questions," Simon told her, "Your turn. Truth or dare?"

Kim sighed.

"Truth," she said.

"Alright, what do you miss most about the year you're from?"

Kim frowned.

"That's not a very risqué question," she said.

"It might be if the thing you missed most was your porn collection," said Simon.

Kim hid behind her can.

"I don't have a porn collection," she lied.

"So what do you miss most?" Simon asked again

Kim leaned back a little. Her face became a little strained as she thought of home.

"I miss all kinds of things," she whispered, "Silly things mostly. DVDs. Digital TV. Decent internet."

"Decent online porn…?" Simon suggested.

Kim ignored him.

"I just miss being in my own little world," she said quietly, "I'll always feel like a stranger here."

Simon nodded slowly. He understood that feeling.

"Sorry, Kim," he said quietly.

Kim took a gulp of lager. This was all getting a bit too morbid.

"OK, you pick. Truth or dare?"

Simon sighed.

"Truth."

"Again?" Kim sighed. She had a dare she was itching to inflict upon him. "OK… have you got a crush on Gene?"

Simon froze. He_ really_ wasn't enjoying this game. Maybe he needed to be more pissed. He downed a fair amount of lager, gasped, belched and looked at her hoping she had forgotten the question but she was waiting in anticipation for his answer. _Bollocks._

"No."

"Liar!"

"You asked me, I answered!"

"It's called _Truth_ or dare, not _Dare or lie through your teeth."_

"If you're not happy with my answer then ask me something else," Simon cried, his cheeks burning up.

Kim sighed. She didn't think Simon was getting into the spirit of this.

"OK," she said, "Have you got any kinks?"

Simon frowned.

"The group?"

"No! _Sexual_ kinks. Fetishes?"

Simon shook his head slowly.

"No," he said, this time being honest.

"No?" frowned Kim, "none at all?"

Simon shook his head.

"If I have, I haven't found it yet," he said.

Kim gave a silly giggle..

"It's funny, I had you down for being a bit of a kinky one!"

"Kim!"

"Well? They say it's always the quiet ones."

"I'm not that quiet," said Simon, "am I?"

Kim sipped her beer.

"Pretty quiet," she said.

Simon looked a little downhearted.

"I'm not as quiet when I'm with Robin," he said.

Kim felt a little guilty. She tried to change the subject.

"I thought you might have been into some kind of weird X-Files dress up kink," she slurred a little, "haven't you ever asked Robin to dress up as Mulder for your depraved purposes?"

"No I bloody haven't!" cried Simon.

"Have you shaved your head to dress up as Skinner?"

"I'll shave _your_ head in a minute," Simon threatened. "Isn't it your turn yet?"

Kim sighed.

"I'll take truth," she said.

"OK, same question to you."

"That's cheating."

"No it's not! You clearly have a secret fetish of yoru own if you've thought to ask that question."

The colour of Kim's cheeks told Simon he was right.

"It's really embarrassing," she said quietly, "I've never told anyone before."

Simon's curiosity was growing.

"Go on," he urged.

Kim bit her lip and sighed. She supposed she had nothing to lose. She beckoned Simon towards her and whispered into his ear. His face grew slightly confused and surprised as she did so. When she finished whispering she turned to an upright position and looked at him a little expectantly.

"That's it," she said.

"That's _it?"_ he frowned, "But… but that's not even _sexual!"_

Kim wished she had a Simonesque jumper to hide in.

"I know."

"That's just a normal, everyday thing!"

"I _know."_

"You get turned on by that, you might as well be turned on by someone cutting their toenails!"

"I told you it was embarrassing," Kim protested, "I can't help what turns me on!"

Simon stared at her, blinking once or twice.

"I thought you were going to have some big kink," he said, "Bondage or something!"

"Yes, well, now you know," Kim said through gritted teeth, "and if you tell anyone at _all_ then you're going to find graffiti about your trouser tent going up in the ladies as well as the gents."

Simon frowned. He didn't like that idea.

"Alright," he sighed, "My turn again. I pick truth."

Kim sighed and scratched her head.

"If you _had to_, had to pick one, who would you rather sleep with: The woman with the fat arse from the canteen or Andrew Ridgeley?"

Simon's three beers threatened to come right back up. He coughed and spluttered as he tried to process the horror of that choice.

"I would rather cut it off than sleep with one of those two!" he cried.

"You _have_ to pick one."

"I can't!"

"Pick one, or you'll have to have them both as a two-headed monster!"

Simon wished, and not for the first time, that he had left the game well enough alone. With great reluctance, burying his head in his jumper, he mumbled,

"The canteen woman."

"She's not even the right gender for you," said Kim.

"I'd rather sleep with _you_ than with _Ridgeley,"_ Simon mumbled, assured that he had sentenced himself to a decade of nightmares.

"Oh thanks! Now it sounds like I rank below the woman with the fat arse!"

Simon hung his head. He really wasn't enjoying this.

"OK, pick – truth or dare?"

Kim wanted to liven things up.

"Dare," she said.

Simon bit his lip as he thought, then a grin finally spread across his face.

"Alright," he said, "Call Gene and tell him he's won an award for _Rear of the Year."_

Kim was halfway through taking a sip of lager at the time. She coughed and spluttered and burst into laughter.

"Do what?" she cried.

"You heard," Simon got to his feet and picked up the cordless phone, "come on - call him. Tell him he's won an award for his exquisite posterior."

"This is the real answer to my crush question coming out now, right?" Kim grinned.

Simon ignored her.

"Come on – call."

With a sigh and a bit of a giggle Kim took the phone from Simon

"Alright," she said, "let me show you how to really play this game."

She was going to enjoy this. Things just got interesting.


	89. Chapter 48, 1995: A Piacere

_**A/N: Second chapter tonight!**_

**Chapter Forty Eight**

Alex fought sleep terribly as it tried again to overcome her. She had spent far too long sleeping and she needed to keep her eyes open and her attention focused on Gene. There had been some vague plans some time ago about dinner but they hadn't gotten beyond the bed yet. She knew they'd have to remedy that soon, she was absolutely ravenous, not least of all from expending so much energy in the last hour or so.

She was aware that Gene had fallen silent. A glance in his direction showed a strange look on his face. That expression worried her a little. It was the same look he'd had when he'd walked out on her before.

"Please don't tell me you're thinking about Keats," she said quietly.

Gene shook his head.

"Layton, actually."

"Layton?" Alex frowned, "what about him?"

"He was the third casualty in yer accident," Gene said, "the one I heard about on the radio." He looked at her, "What were you chasing him for, anyway?"

Alex gave a thin smile.

"I had this stupid idea that he might be my ticket home," she said quietly.

"Not so stupid," said Gene, "you're here, aren't you?"

Alex realised he was right. She hadn't been thinking of it in those terms.

"I suppose he _was_ my ticket home," she said quietly.

Gene looked at her a little curiously.

"What were you doing with bloody Dinner anyway?"

"Dinner?" frowned Alex.

"_Dinner-dinner-dinner-dinner, dinner-dinner-dinner-dinner Batman!"_ Gene explained.

Alex rolled her eyes.

"Robin," she sighed.

"How was _he_ going to help you plot yer course back?" Gene asked, "he's as wet as the bloody canteen sprouts."

"Robin's not wet," Alex told him, "he was amazing. Really amazing. And anyway, if you thought that then why did you recruit him into CID?"

Gene wrinkled up his nose.

"He can have a brain and still be wet," he said.

"There's nothing 'wet' about Robin," Alex told him, "he's the only one who has ever snubbed Keats when he tried to persuade him to help destroy you," she pointed out.

Gene breathed heavily. She had a point.

"Still doesn't explain why you were riding in the Batmobile," he said.

"Robin was the only person I knew," she said quietly, "Gene, I had no memory of my life back there. I only remembered you and this place, but I didn't even remember what this world was about. All I knew was that Robin was one person I recognised, and Evan was trying to get the men in white coats to take me away. Robin took me in, he kept me safe, he moved me from place to place, faced his worst fears and showed such amazing strength, all to help me get home."

Gene felt an awkwardness settling upon him.

"I think he did a bit more than_ that_ to help you get home," he said so quietly Alex could hardly hear.

"Pardon?"

Gene had no way of knowing what happened on that stretch of road in the middle of 2011. All he knew was what he'd heard on the radio. He knew there was Alex, Robin and Layton. He couldn't imagine Layton helping Alex to cross over. Someone had to have done the job. He couldn't understand that. He couldn't understand how it was possible. How could someone on that side of the line –

He was driving himself crazy with all the questions. He needed to stop thinking about it and start being grateful she'd made it home at all.

"Simon," he began, looking at Alex, "He doesn't know."

"About what you heard?" Alex asked. She watched him shake his head. "Why?"

Gene breathed in deeply.

"Don't know if it would be kill or cure," he said.

"What do you mean?"

"Shoebury's not a tower of strength at the moment," Gene told her, "He's had more of me scotch than I have lately. Falling apart. And faling opver. Had some funny turn in the car when I took you to hospital." He hesitated, trying to work out how to explain it, "I remember you, Bolly. When you were first here. Things that happened _out there_, made things happen to you here." He shook his head a little. "Well, there _is_ no Simon _out there._ Bloody Batman dragged him over. They turned up like a bloody three legged race. Something's tying them together."

"You think he was reacting to something happening to Robin?" Alex whispered. Gene didn't reply but he didn't have to. His eyes explained what he was thinking. "I don't know what happened to Robin after the accident," she whispered, "I don't know if he survived."

"Radio said he was taken to hospital," Gene said quietly.

"That could mean anything," she whispered. She closed her eyes for a moment. "But if he didn't make it, wouldn't he be back here?"

Gene gave a little shrug.

"Even if he was here he could be in any year," he reminded her.

"There's really know way of knowing," Alex's heart felt heavy, "is there?"

Gene's _'no' _was interrupted by the ringing of the phone and he groaned.

"Oh someone's got the bloody timing of an arse," he mumbled.

"Ignore it," said Alex, her fingers pressing against his chest.

Gene wanted to. He really did. But the ringing was insistent and annoying.

"Flaming telecommunications," he mumbled getting out of bed, "bloody Orange might be promising the skies being clearer while they count to eight but they 'aven't made a phone that comes when you call it." He grabbed it and lifted the receiver. "_What?"_

Alex watched curiously as Gene's expression became increasingly confused, then annoyed.

"Who is it?" she called out.

Gene listened for a few more seconds before barking down the phone,

"Stringer – stop pretending to be Scottish, get off me bloody phone and we'll talk about your sudden fixation with me arse in my office, tomorrow. Now kindly piss off and take yer arse award with you so I can get back to bed."

He thumped down the receiver and turned to Alex.

"That sounded… interesting," she commented.

"It will be even more interesting when Metal Mickey gets a Gene Genie style hangover cure in the morning," he threatened. Something strange was going on, of that he was sure. As he headed back to bed he heard a hungry groan from Alex's stomach. He checked the clock. "Bugger, how long were we testing out the bed springs?"

"Not long enough," Alex said, her smile a little coy, but her hunger made itself heard again and she realised she was never going to top up her cleavage if they put off their dinner indefinitely. She sighed and sat up, pulling the covers around her shoulders. "Take away?"

"Take away the sheets? Yes please?"

Alex rolled her eyes.

"Chinese? Or pizza?"

"Not pizza!" cried Gene, "I'm starting to look like a bloody Pizza Hut."

"Chinese then?"

Gene nodded, almost reluctantly. He didn't want to disturb their evening.

"I'll call."

"Go and pick it up," said Alex.

"Bloody hell, you've been back five minutes and you're trying to get rid of me!"

You can do me a favour on the way."

"What sort of favour?"

"Simon," she said, "can you go to his flat and borrow a magazine for me?"

"I know what sort of magazines Simon's got, and I'm not bringing one o' those back."

"Not _porn_, Gene," sighed Alex.

"What then?"

Alex explained what she wanted and Gene's face grew horrified.

"God's sake, woman, I'd prefer the bloody back alley porn!" he cried.

"Oh come _on,_ Gene, be a man and face your fear."

"My only fear losing my reputation," Gene muttered but he started pulling on his clothes and eyed her warily. "Things I do for you, there'd better be a bloody big box under the Christmas tree for me this year."

It was with a sigh Alex realised she had nothing ready for Christmas. Her interloper certainly hadn't done her Christmas shopping for her, nor decorated the tree. Gene was going to be lucky to get any kind of a box at this rate.

"My hair will be forever indebted to you," she said.

Gene stared at her again. Those pleading eyes. This was not a round he was going to win.

"Yer hair can start making it up to me by getting you a kinky Santa costume," he said and disappeared through the door, one leg still out of his trousers.

~xXx~

"Well?" Simon was spluttering with laughter before Kim even said anything, "what did he say?"

"I got busted," Kim's giggling got the better of her and she managed to tumble from her chair. This time she stayed on the floor. It seemed safer. She couldn't fall off the floor after all, "I'm going to be in _sho-o-o-o-o_ much trouble tomorrow."

"I think the Scottish accent was a bit of a mistake," said Simon."

"That was sh'pposed to be Swedish!" Kim protested drunkenly. She rubbed her forehead, "and he thinks I have a fixation with his arse now."

Simon slid down to join her on the floor, beer in hand. He swigged from the can while laughing and spluttered a little.

"This whole game was _your _idea, Kim," he reminded her.

"Don't I know it," she said. She paused. "Come on, your turn. Froof or dare?:"

"Huh?" Simon shook his head a little, "_froof,_ please."

Kim looked at him.

"Why do you have a crush on Gene?"

Simon glared back.

"I already told you, I don't," he said.

"Yes, and now I have rephrased the question to prevent you from lying," she said.

Simon tried to stare her down. He fixed his eyes upon her, daring her to look away but her stare didn't falter and in the end his growing sense of guilt, depression and embarrassment got the better of him and he looked away first, his cheeks taking on a pink hue.

"I don't know," he mumbled quietly.

His words were so quiet Kim wasn't sure she heard rightly.

"What?"

"I said I don't know," Simon turned slightly towards her but didn't look her in the eye, "I don't know and it's driving me crazy."

Kim stared at him and swallowed. It was strange, she'd been pressing him about this for days and now he'd admitted it she felt a little awkward.

"You don't have to answer," she said quietly, realising she'd maybe overstepped the boundaries but Simon shook his head.

"You wanted to know," he said, "well, so do I. I have no idea. No fucking idea. He's so far removed from –" he shook his head slowly, "he'd not my type. Not physically, not at all. Usually…." He looked down with the saddest if smiles, "well, _Robin's_ my type. All over. Dark hair, dark eyes." He shook his head again.

"Sorry, shouldn't have asked," Kim said awkwardly. She felt guilty and stole Simon's can for a swig. Maybe she shouldn't have started the game after all.

"And he's the biggest bigot I've ever met," Simon continued regardless, "he picks on me the whole time – the _whole_ time – and if he's not picking on me I get worried I've done something to offend him, and I start missing it! He's brash and bullish and the biggest homophobe I've met who wasn't wearing school uniform," he shook his head, "but there's – _something."_

Kim felt extremely awkward now. The look on Simon's face was painful. She didn't know whether to tell him he could talk to her or to stop talking now for his own good. Eventually she said,

"Go on."

"He's protective," he said, "he'd go to any lengths for someone he cares about. Not that he'd admit it. He…" he shook his head. "You don't want to be hearing this."

"No, go on."

"I feel safe with him," Simon said quietly. In a place as daunting as his strange world that counted for a lot, "He gets things done. He'll go to any length to see justice is done. Even if his methods are," he hesitated, "_unconventional_, they get the result in the end." He shook his head a little. "He's strong. Really strong."

"I don't get why you're beating yourself up over it so much," Kim told him, "you're giving yourself such a hard time about it for no reason."

"Robin's been gone weeks and I'm getting a bloody trouser tent over Gene Hunt," Simon's shame grew as his cheeks grew redder, "I miss Robin _so_ much. I love him. I don't want anyone else." He took a deep breath, "so why can't I get _him_ out my head?"

Kim felt a deep sadness as she looked at Simon. His situation was tragic, knowing how he and Robin had been parted and the circumstances surrounding it. But he was doing himself no good with his self-torment.

"You're lost and alone in a strange place," she said, "you're looking for someone to latch onto." She looked down. It was no more than she had done with Keats. So Gene wasn't going to be turning on the gas and air any time soon – it was still the sense of being drawn to a powerful figure. "Don't be so hard on yourself, Simon. It's not like you're being unfaithful. Robin's not here and Gene's never going to turn. Maybe for a _squirrel_, but…" her mind went back to the whole squirrel costume_ thing_. They still hadn't managed to extract the truth from Gene about that. "It's not like you actually think anything's going to happen. And everyone needs a crush. You need something to get your heart pumping. Without that, you might as well be dead!" The traumatised, crestfallen look on Simon's face made her cringe. "You know what I mean!" she protested, "I mean, it makes you feel alive." She sighed a little. "I'm sorry you can't be with Robin. I'm sorry he's not here and you're not there. But stop being so bloody hard on yourself. Stop moping about Robin and stop moping about Gene."

"I'm not moping about Gene," Simon pulled a face.

"You do it all the time," said Kim, "I know that's what you're doing every time you wear that jumper."

"_Not,"_ Simon moped, folding his arms.

Kim looked away. She was starting to feel depressed now. She didn't usually reach that point until at least another three cans.

"Can we move on?" she asked.

"Yes please," mumbled Simon.

Kim sighed.

"Alright, I pick truth," she said.

Simon rubbed his head.

"Alright," he said, "since you're so fixated on crushes, who do you fancy in CID?"

Kim drank some beer.

"No one," she said.

"No one at all?"

Kim shook her head.

"Nope."

"Come on, there's got to be someone," said Simon, "you told me you were checking out Lindsay's arse the other day."

"Checking out someone's arse is not the same as having a crush," said Kim.

"There's got to be someone," said Simon.

"We don't all go around with our tongues hanging out and lumps in our trousers," said Kim.

"If you had a lump in your trousers I'd be very worried indeed," said Simon.

Kim finished Simon's beer, felt guilty and fetched another can for him from the table.

"I just don't think there's anyone in CID who's my type," she said.

"Sticking with Gillian Anderson then?" teased Simon.

Kim eyed him.

"For now."

Simon opened the can, a little foam spraying him from Kim's rough fetching of the drink.

"Lindsay looks a bit like Gillian Anderson," he said.

"Only cos she's got red hair," said Kim.

"And similar features," said Simon.

"You bloody go out with her then!" said Kim.

"I'm not the one with the Scully fixation," said Simon.

Kim scowled as she watched him drink more lager and burp quietly under his breath, then hiccup and lean back against the leg of the table. He was looking definitely the worse for wear now. His eyes were unfocused, his overgrown hair starting to flop over his face and he looked flushed and hot. The jumper probably wasn't helping.

"I don't fancy anyone in CID," she said, "the FBI is not in question here. Now, your turn, truth or dare?"

"Toilet," said Simon.

"That wasn't one of the options," Kim frowned, a little confused.

"My bladder disagrees," Simon mumbled, crawling on all fours to reach the bathroom safely without toppling over.

Kim sighed. She wasn't very comfortable on the kitchen floor. The lounge had a better carpet so she dragged herself to her feet, picked up a couple of cans and slumped through to the lounge to wait for Simon. When he re-emerged he stopped, looked at Kim and frowned.

"Did you move the sofa into the kitchen?

"Don't be stupid, just come in here where it's more comfortable," sighed Kim.

Simon sank onto the couch and picked up the beer Kim had brought through for him.

"So where were we?"

"It was your turn to choose."

"Truth."

"You're so boring," said Kim.

"Tough."

Kim sighed. "OK, what was your most wrong Christmas?" she asked, then she paused and spluttered with laughter, "I mean, your most_ baaaaaaad_ Christmas… one where things went wrong? What was the worst one ever?"

Simon drank more beer and leaned back. He supposed he might actually be getting the hang of this drinking thing now. He still hated the taste but the more he drank the less he cared. He was feeling dizzy and bloated but the strange buzzy feeling was helping to put a haze over the situation he was in and gave him a rest from thinking about that for a while.

"My worst Christmas," he began, "my _most wrong_ Christmas… would have to be Christmas nineteen ninety nine. Turn of the millennium. I had flu for the whole of December and only got up three days before Christmas. Had to do all my Christmas shopping in a day. By the time Christmas day came I'd only just got my appetite back, ate too much and spent the afternoon with chronic indigestion, reading _The Bill_ slash fiction on the internet."

Kim's mouth dropped open.

"_What?"_ she cried, "what was it like?"

"Horrible," said Simon, "painful, burning feeling in my chest –"

"I was talking about _The Bill_ slash fiction, not the indigestion," said Kim.

"So was I," said Simon, "I still have nightmares!" he hung his head slowly. "I never recovered after that Brownlow and Conway one…"

Kim regretted asking that question even more than she regretted the one about Gene.

"_Sho-o-o-o-o-o-o-o…_ my turn, and I'll pick truth," she said.

Simon looked at her. There was one question he really wanted to ask but wasn't sure if he dared. Curiosity was getting the better of him though.

"Alright," he said. He took a deep breath. "How do you really feel about Keats?"

Kim stated at him. She couldn't believe he'd asked her that.

"I hate him," she whispered.

Simon stared at her.

"Sometimes that's true," he said, "but sometimes…" he paused, "sometimes it's like you lapse. Like you don't know how you feel about him. You call him Jim, or… or try to help him."

"Well _you_ try sometimes too," Kim reminded him.

It was true. He did. While others sought to find a way to destroy Keats Simon wanted to help him to find a way to be be human again. Why was that? He honestly didn't know.

"I don't call him Jim though," Simon pointed out.

Kim looked down. She let out her breath slowly.

"He's still in here," she tapped her head and looked as angry as Simon had ever seen her, "he worked his way in my head and I don't know how to get him out of there. I hate what he's done to me, Simon. I hate it, and I hate him."

Simon knew he'd asked the one question he should have kept back. He bit his lip.

"Sorry Kim," he said quietly. He wished he could take it back. Since he couldn't, he tried the next best thing; _Distraction._ "Kim? I choose a dare."

Kim looked up at him.

"I think we should stop playing," she said.

Simon's spirits sank.

"Come on Kim," he said, "cheer yourself up by humiliating me."

Kim eyed him.

"If I make you do a dare it's going to be a bad one," she said.

"I can take it," Simon said stoically.

A tiny smile appeared on Kim's face. She was tempted.

"OK, she said, "Call Alex, tell her you're having a midlife crisis, swapped teams and want her body."

Simon choked so hard he thought he saw going to be sick.

"You have to be kidding," he cries.

"I did warn you," she said.

Simon shook his head.

"I'm not doing it," he said.

"Do it or I sing the song about your trouser tent in the middle of the canteen tomorrow," said Kim.

"_What_ song about my trouser tent?"

"The one those guys from uniform made up." Said Kim, "didn't you see the little dance they made up to go with it?"

Simon had no knowledge of this. The fact there was a song was bad enough. The fact that Kim was threatening to sing it in the canteen made him want to hide forever.

"Fine," he snatched up the phone, dialled and waited. Alex's voice came on the line and immediately Simon began to giggle with nerves.

"Shhhh – _serious!"_ hissed Kim.

Simon tried to stop laughing, bit his lip, then began,

"Alex? It's Shimon."

"_Sh_imon?" Alex repeated.

Simon hesitated. It was close enough.

"I need you, Alex," he told her, "I have a crisis on my midlife and I want to have your body."

Somewhere nearby Kim fell over with laughter while the line went very quiet. Then Alex said,

"_Is this anything to do with Gene's bottom award?"_

Simon cringed.

"_Shit!"_ he cursed and hung up quickly.

"Ha ha, you got busted too!" cried Kim.

"At least I didn't put on a Scottish accent!" cried Simon.

"That was _sweedish!"_ cried Kim.

Simon laughed so hard he doubled over for some time. Finally he wiped his eyes and said,

"Alex might have taken me up on my offer, you know."

"No she wouldn't."

"Oh, she might," a stupid grin spread across Simon's face. _"I_ know a little secret about _Ge-ene,"_ he said in a sing-song voice.

"What?" frowned Kim.

Simon snickered as he gave a little visual representation of their earlier talk which caused Kim to shriek with laughter.

"You are _kidding _me!" she cried.

"Why do you think he was in such a state?" cried Simon.

Kim slapped the floor with laughter and screeched in amusement.

"Oh my god, since when has he, uh…"

"Had trouble with his off-duty Police man?" asked Simon, "he keeps seeing Keats. Keeps seeing that video."

Kim's face fell a little. Now it wasn't so funny.

"Oh," she said.

Simon realised he had put his foot in it - again. He bit his lip and tried to get the game back on track.

"Your turn – truth or dare?"

"I'll take a dare," she said.

"Alright, but it's going to be a post-dated dare and you _have_ to do it tomorrow."

"If you even remember," said Kim.

"Oh, I'll remember," said Simon, "and if you don't do it then I'll tell everyone about your dirty little X-Files secret. OK?"

Kim sighed.

"Fine. What is it?"

Simon looked proud.

"You have to pinch the considerable bottom of the woman in the canteen," he said.

Kim narrowed her eyes at him.

"All your dares involve arses," she said, "are you _sure_ you don't have a kink?"

"Are you going to do it?" he asked.

Kim sighed and nodded.

"I suppose so," she agreed reluctantly.

Simon beamed.

"Excellent," he hiccupped and put one hand over his stomach, "Urgh… I think I might be getting seasick. The floor's moving a bit fast."

"Maybe we should wind up this lesson for one night then," said Kim. "One more dare?"

"What if I was going to pick truth?" asked Simon.

"Then I'd pretend I misheard," said Kim.

Simon sighed.

"Fine. What's the dare?"

"Mine's poshht-dated too," Kim slurred, "whenever you see him next - you've got to kiss Gene."

Simon looked at her in horror.

"Kim, that's stupid," he said.

"A big smacker, on the lips."

"I'm not kissing Gene," Simon got unsteadily to his feet, "He'd kneecap me. This game is over."

"No, I went first so you still have one to complete," she said, "or it wouldn't be fair."

"Then I pick truth."

"Too late, dare's been issued!"

"I'm not doing that!" Simon cried, "Gene will dissect me limb from limb!"

"Where'sh your sense of av-denture?" cried Kim.

"After what I said earlier, I can't believe you'd make me do that."

"Treat yourself! It's Christmas!" Kim giggled, "Ooh, _mistletoe,_ perfect excuse."

"Shut up, Kim, that's enough, I've already said I'm not doing it."

Kim frowned.

"You're such a bloody killjoy," she said.

"I am not."

"Stick in the mud."

"Just because I don't want to do a bloody stupid dare!" cried Simon as he paced up and down.

"I've done two dares!"

"You've done one. One is still in the balance."

"Same for you then."

"Kim, just stop it, I'm not doing it."

"I knew it," said Kim.

"Knew what?"

"Too chicken."

"Reverse pathology isn't going to work on me," Simon snapped.

"Reverse _what?"_

"You know what I mean!"

"You're so stuffy, Simon!" cried Kim, "no wonder you get in such a flap about your trouser tent!"

"That should never have gone public!"

"You're so stuffy I'm surprised you're not still a virgin!"

"That's _enough_ Kim," Simon started getting angry.

"You wouldn't answer the _how old_ question," Kim reminded him, "Maybe you still are! Maybe you spent years telling Robin you had a headache!"

That hurt. Simon didn't like that.

"You have no idea what you're talking about, Kim," he cried, painfully recalling that their wonderful last time was moments before Robin disappeared, "just because I'm not some slapper –"

"_Slapper?"_

"Who has drunken snogs and sleeps with the devil –"

"_What?"_

"Doesn't mean I'm stuffy!" he cried, "if Robin was here you could fucking ask him! And for your information, if Gene stepped through that door right now, I would bloody love to –"

His sentence ceased as a key turned in the lock, the door opened and Gene's next ten years of nightmares were sealed. He didn't know who was more surprised by Simon grabbing him by the collar, yanking him forward and planting a _large smacker_ directly on the lips.

There was a horrible,_ terrible_ moment of silence.

A moment in which Gene would have done _anything_ to have lost that spare key Simon had given him, even swallowing it if necessary.

A moment in which Simon saw his P45 flash before his eyes.

A moment in which the universe covered its ears to await the fallout.

Gene stared at Simon. He linked his fingers and cracked his knuckles.

"Simon –" he began.

There was a loud gulp.

Then Simon fled the room at the pace of Speedy Gonzales on steroids, ran to his bedroom, slammed the door and moved several large pieces of furniture up against it.

Forget hangovers.

If Simon still had enough of a head left on his shoulders _to _ache by the morning then he was going to be _very_ lucky indeed.


	90. Chapter 49, 1995: Feurig

_**A/N: Just one chapter tonight, but 2 tomorrow!**_

**Chapter Forty Nine**

"Bye bye, Bols," Gene set his jaw firmly.

Alex looked at him in surprise.

"Where are you going?" she asked.

"Got to deliver an early morning alarm call," he said, straightening his tie.

"B-but I thought you were going to take me to the hairdressers and get rid of this 'do from last decade!"

"Relax Drakey, I will be back," said Gene.

Alex couldn't understand what was going on. Gene had returned to the flat the evening before and thumped a magazine and their takeaway on the table before mumbling about her owing him_ two_ bloody big boxes under the tree and going into the bathroom to take an incredibly long shower. Even after the water stopped running he didn't emerge and the food had gone cold by the time she'd coaxed him out. He mumbled something about feeling nauseous, never wanting to eat or _have _anything in or near his mouth again, ever, needing to clean his teeth several times and expressed a strong desire to go to bed and forget the day ever happened.

The events that immediately followed the fruition of Simon's dare were ones that Gene would not easily forget Several minutes spent hammering against Simon's door, yelling every homophobic, nerdophobic and shoe-related insult that he could muster had no effect. Eventually he made a rude gesture at a giggling Kim, swiped an X-Files magazine from the coffee table and told Kim that if either she or Simon ever mentioned what he was borrowing then he would _'Divide the magazine into two equal halves and jam one up each of their backsides so far that you could read the headlines when they opened their mouths."_ That was fair enough.

As though Gene's evening of humiliation couldn't get any worse he was stopped by three geeks in the street who saw him with the magazine tucked under his arm, gave him a thumb's up sign and started quoting lines for The X Files at him.

By the time he arrived home he felt certain all his worst nightmares were coming to haunt him in one go. And they went by the name of Simon.

~xXx~

Simon tiptoed to the washing machine, partly so as not to upset the three pneumatic drills that were banging away inside his head and partly in an attempt not to be caught.

"What are you doing?"

It was too late and Simon jumped a mile as Kim followed him to the kitchen door. He jumped in the air, gasped and closed his eyes.

"Don't _do_ that, Kim!" he cried, throwing his pyjama bottoms into the washing machine and slamming the door.

Kim frowned.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing, I had an accident," mumbled Simon.

Kim watched curiously and the corners of her mouth switched into a smirk.

"You pissed yourself?"

"Ugh! _No!"_ cried Simon. He flushed bright red. It was worse than that. _Much _worse. He hadn't had a wet dream since he was sixteen years old. After 'tenting' most of the night he'd woken to a horrifically embarrassing situation and literally howled in shame. A quick clean-up operation later, the jumper was on and the pyjamas were heading straight to the washing machine. He was mortified and ashamed. He felt two inches tall. That, however, was not a reflection on the tenting.

"How's your head?" Kim asked, her voice low and gravelly like a jazz singer. She walked at an extremely slow pace to the table and sat down.

"What head?" Simon mumbled, sure it had been replaced by a box full of shards of glass.

He switched on the washing machine and saw Kim clutching her head.

"Oh, why did you do that?" she whimpered.

Simon didn't reply. He joined her at the table and started opening up the painkillers Kim had instructed him to buy the day before. That was a wise move, he decided. He took a couple of Paracetamol and passed the packet to Kim.

"My loving gift to you," he said.

"Thanks," Kim mumbled. She took two and glanced at Simon. "You want any breakfast?"

Simon retched at the thought.

"My stomach's bubbling so loudly it's making my headache worse," he groaned. He could feel the alcohol burning in his guts and the fizz he wasn't used to had left him feeling like a blimp. At least the jumper covered a multitude of sins.

"I would risk cornflakes but I think the crunching might split my brain in half," groaned Kim. She felt her head flop a little to the table. "Why did we do that?"

"I believe it was your idea," Simon reminded her.

"Well I won't be doing that again," Kim moaned, "not fresh out of hospital, anyway. And you were right. I should never have done this. You weren't designed to drink."

"Oh, fuck that," said Simon.

Kim looked at him curiously through her swollen, bloodshot eyes.

"What?"

"That was the first night I didn't lay staring at the ceiling thinking about Robin until stupid o'clock in the morning," Simon mumbled, "have you any idea what a bloody relief that is?" he shook his head slowly. All those nights, ever since he'd arrived and Robin had woken up. He'd been at the mercy of never-ending sleepless nights, staring at the ceiling times, counting them, longing for the nightmare to be over. The previous night he'd fallen into bed and passed out before his eyes were fully closed.

And then there had been dreams…

He thought it was best not to think about those though. He didn't want a repeat of the night time incident.

"Really, Simon," she began, "I'd lay off it a bit. Get to know your limits."

"My limit is going out and doing it properly at the karaoke bar tonight," said Simon, "are you coming?"

Kim couldn't think about anything other than the anvil chorus that was going on inside her thumping head.

"Ask me when I've grown a new brain," she mumbled. She glanced at Simon. "You are in so much trouble."

Simon frowned.

"Why?"

Kim bit her lip.

"You don't remember?"

Simon began to feel anxious.

"Don't… remember… _what?"_ he asked.

Kim gulped.

"Well –" she began.

There was a kerfuffle in the lounge just then as the front door opened and then slammed so hard that both the walls and Simon's head shook violently. Thundering footsteps approached the kitchen doorway until a loud voice boomed out,

"_Wakey wakey kids, this is your early morning alarm call."_

Simon's head turned to see Gene standing in the doorway, his face as angry as he had ever seen it. Suddenly everything became clear.

"Oh shit," he whispered.

Stomp. Stomp. Stomp.

Gene paced to the kitchen table and thumped two take-away coffees from Latte Land on the top so hard that Simon thought he was going to break the table legs. As it was he almost split the Styrofoam.

"Coffee," he boomed, "Black. _Strong._ And a Gene-approved amount of sugars." He looked from Simon to Kim in turn. "Drink."

Simon bit his lip. His heart sank into his boots.

_This explains the 'accident',_ he thought to himself.

"Making funny phone calls to your DCI at an ungodly hour of the night," Gene began to pace up and down, "offering him awards about his backside. Calling up 'is missus and making an indecent proposal." He came to a halt beside Simon, rested his hands on the table and leaned in towards him. "Attempting to turn your respected colleague into a limp-wristed whoofter!"

Simon couldn't possibly cringe any harder.

"Sorry, Guv," he said weakly.

Gene stared him in the eye.

"_Tongues,_ Simon," he barked, "you used bloody _tongues!"_

"Technically, only _one_ tongue was mine," Simon raised his hand like a schoolboy but that only served to rile Gene up further.

"Now, thanks to you I have used a small reservoir in showers. I am never going to be able to sleep again. And I've run out of toothpaste."

Simon swallowed.

"You can borrow mine?" he said weakly.

"I never want to see _anything_ that's been within a hundred meters of your mouth again, Shoe-boy," he snapped.

Uh oh. _Shoe-boy._ This was bad.

"Gene, look –" he began but Gene had no intention of listening to excuses. Instead he reached into the bag he'd brought with him, pulled out a packet of bacon and threw it on the table.

"Fry up for both of you," he said.

Simon blanched.

"That's not a good idea, Gene," he began.

"It is if you still want a job by the end of the day," Gene barked, "I want you in the office, _on_ time, brains in place and stomachs full."

"Mine's full of gas, is that's any good?" Simon mumbled, sliding down in his seat like a pouting teenager.

"And if either of you are as much as _one single second _late," Gene continued, rummaging for a frying pan, "then you will be spending the day demoted to toilet duty and can spend the next eight hours scrubbing trouser-tent artwork from the wall of the gents'. Is that clear?"

"Guv, I've only just come out of hospital!" Kim protested, "I got shot! I'm supposed to be on sick leave!"

"Yes," Gene began, "and I can see where _you_ left your sick, in Shoebury's lounge."

Kim bit her lip and glanced at Simon.

"Erm," she began. "I might have had a bit of an accident last night after you went to bed…"

Simon's face screwed up in horror.

"Oh _Kim!"_

"It wasn't my fault," Kim mumbled, "the couch was spinning too fast."

Gene turned on the hob and dropped half a tub of lard into the pan before setting the rashers of bacon free to swim amongst it.

"Handcuffs," he began, "trouser tents and now this," he turned to Simon. "Just because you're seemingly indestructible doesn't mean I won't have a go at dong the impossible!"

Simon wanted to melt into a puddle and disappear through the floorboards. He wanted to vanish into thin air and never be seen again.

"I'm _sorry!"_ he protested, but Gene hadn't finished.

"Was that supposed to be a harsh lesson in tolerance?" he asked, flipping over the bacon with little regard for the state of Simon's kitchen Vs. the melted lard, "because if it is then I would like to help_ you_ become more tolerant of toilets with a series of swirlies!"

"It was Kim's fault!" Simon blabbed, "she got me all riled up!"

Kim knew she was partly to blame.

"Truth or dare _was_ my idea, Guv," she said quietly, "I'm sorry."

Gene froze. He narrowed his eyes at Simon.

"So now it was a dare?"

Simon hung his head.

"Sorry."

Gene made a gruff, angry noise.

"A bloody _dare?"_

"Well what did you think it was?" frowned Simon.

Gene pulled his lips into a straight, angry line.

"I at least thought you had good taste," he mumbled, a bit flustered.

"He _does,"_ Kim blurted before Simon's elbow met sharply with her ribs, _"ow!"_

Gene's stare turned to Kim.

"And we need to 'ave a word about your apparent lusting for me backside," he said, "now are you or are you not in the K.D. Lang fan club?"

Kim bit her lip.

"It was only a joke," she said.

Gene scowled.

"Another bloody dare?"

"Well, yes."

Gene drew in his breath as the bacon spat and hissed in the pan.

"So you do not think my buttocks have," he paused, trying to remember the phrase, _"a deliciously peachy quality that you could pinch and squeeze until the sun sets in the sky?"_

Kim coughed a little.

"Uh, no," she confessed.

Gene's brow creased.

"In other words, you've not jumped ship to sail in the yacht of rugged handsomeness they call the Gene Genie?"

Kim felt her stomach turn.

"Definitely not," she said, adding quickly, "No offence."

Gene's scowl grew darker and his eyes narrowed. He switched off the pan, heaped the greasy rashers into two piles and thumped one plate in front of each of them.

"Here's yer desecrated pig meat," he mumbled, "I hope you bloody choke on it!" He marched out of the kitchen, turned around and eyed them angrily. "My office. Half an hour."

Kim and Simon braced themselves for the slamming of the door and a moment later the expected din rang out. They each opened one eye and glanced at each other.

"I think we've just made it worse," Simon commented.

Kim nodded slowly.

"The impossible strikes back," she said.

Both glanced at the plates before them, then back at each other.

"I think I'm going to be –" Simon began.

"Me too," Kim finished, and they ran in opposite directions as the bacon brought about a case of the oral Ridgeleys.

~xXx~

"He was not."

"He was."

"He was _not!"_

"_He was!" _Kim insisted as she and Simon made the short walk to the station. It seemed safer than taking the car for more reasons than one. Simon didn't fancy driving. He was still about 80% proof and the thought of the bacon hadn't finished setting his guts off yet.

"He was _not _'flattered', he was going to rip my ears off!" he cried.

"Simon, he got really pissed off when he found out it was a dare."

"Not because he was flattered! He was pissed off because he was angry he got used in a bloody dare."

Kim trotted a little to keep up as Simon's pace increased.

"I didn't know you used tongues," she said.

"Oh for pity's sake," Simon rolled his eyes and threw his hands in the air, "One tongue. I've only got one tongue! You make me sound like some mutant from the X Files." He frowned, "speaking of which, what happened to my magazine?"

"Gene borrowed that last night."

"_Gene?"_ frowned Simon, "what was he doing with that?"

"I didn't ask," said Kim, "he made enough threats for me to know I had to keep my nose out!"

Simon shook his head slowly.

"Day full of surprises," he mumbled.

Kim looked at him.

"So whose was the other tongue?" she asked cheekily.

Simon rolled his eyes and threw open the door of the station. He'd had enough of this line of questioning and was terrified the trouser tent was about to reprise its former moment of glory.

They arrived in CID to find Gene in his office, sitting on the desk, staring out at them. Simon's gulp was so loud that he was sure it could be heard over in Fenchurch West.

"Uh, I think I'll go straight to my office and check on Vickery," he began but Gene was quick off the mark, paced to his office door, opened it quickly and boomed,

"Shoe-boy, you're going nowhere. "

Simon cringed.

"I had a horrible feeling you were going to say that," he whimpered.

Gene looked from Simon to Kim and back again.

"Now," he began, "thanks to _someone_ not a million miles away from me I didn't get a lot of sleep last night. I was tossing and turning –"

"Someone else was _tossing_, apparently," Kim giggled until Simon whacked her on the arm.

"And having a sudden urge to invest in an industrial sized bottle of mouthwash!" Gene concluded. "So I am on a _very bad mood indeed!_ And this mood will be lightened by three things. One – giving my most boring, strung-out and general mind-numbing paperwork to a couple of hung-over goons in the office. Two, taking Bolly to de-Jimbofy her hair while the aforementioned goons are doing all my paperwork. And three," he glared at Simon, "adding some alterations to the graffiti in the toilets to clarify that yer trouser tent might be impressive but you're a bloody crap kisser."

"_Hey!"_ Simon cried indignantly.

Gene paced thunderously through CID until he reached the doors and glanced back.

"Paperwork. Now. Either of you move from this room before it's done then you can forget trouser tents, you're gonna be bloody _sleeping_ in a tent!"

With that he left the hung-over pair to face a mountain of paperwork and a barrage of regrets.

~xXx~

Alex stared at Gene as he drove her to the hairdresser's.

"But I don't understand what he did that was so awful," she said, "You went to get a magazine and you came back like some kind of zombie with a shower fetish!"

Gene stared at the road ahead.

"In me fifty odd years of life I have never –" he trailed off. There was one time when Ray cornered him in a darned stationery cupboard, claiming he was waiting for some unspecified blonde piece from uniform but apart from that –

"Gene, what did he…?" She sighed and rolled her eyes. She remembered Kim circa 2011 talking about the _worst Christmas ever._ This was it, wasn't it? This was the start of that. Whatever it was, Simon had just started some kind of war. "Oh _no,_ this is going to end with projectile vomiting and clams," she laid her head in her hand against the window, "isn't it?"

"Clams?" Gene repeated, "what the… _clams?"_ He'd rather have kissed one of those.

"I don't know the details," she said tiredly, "just that it involves Simon and clams and cooking."

Gene closed his eyes for a second. He'd managed to forget about _Come Dine With Me._

"Great, another bloody Shoebury masterpiece," he mumbled, "I'd managed to block that out. Hold onto yer knickers, Lady B, you're going to love this one. Simon's arranging for us to spend a week in the throes of twenty first century culinary television."

Alex looked at him.

"I don't think I like the sound of this," she said.

"You and me both, Bols," said Gene. For a split second a horrible image came to mind of a plate on the table with a silver lid on the top. He couldn't recall the proper name for the lid so his mind labelled it a _silver 'ta-da!' thing_. But when, in his mind, he removed the silver lid and said _'ta-da!'_ all he found underneath was Simon's face, puckering up for seconds.

He shuddered and tried to turn his attention back to the road.

"Clams, you said?"

Alex wasn't sure what he was talking about.

"Hmm?"

"Clams. Sounds poncy enough to get Shoebury off me back."

Alex rubbed her forehead.

"What are you talking about, Gene?" she sighed. Nothing had made sense so far that morning.

"I'll tell him I'll cook a load of bloody clams and that'll get 'im off me back about this three course meal."

"_What_ three course meal?"

"The one I've got to cook for you, Shoe-Boy and Metal Mickey."

Alex wasn't following this.

"Why have you got to cook a meal for us all?" she asked, "and why are you calling Simon _Shoe-Boy?_ Oh God, Gene, what _has_ he done?"

Gene's face grew angry.

"_Who_ has he done, more like," was all he would mumble.

~xXx~

Simon gave a deep sigh as he turned over yet another sheet of paper, stamped it and punched holes in the side. He eyed Kim and wondered how her head was doing. If it was anything like his then she would be seeking some more paracetamol round about now.

"How's your hangover?" he asked.

"I might be able to move my head again sometime around one PM," said Kim.

Simon moved some more papers carefully. They were rustling a little loudly.

"So, about tonight," he said.

Kim stared at him. The circles around her eyes were darkening with every moment.

"Simon, I really hope you are kidding," she said, "I am going nowhere near alcohol or anywhere with enough decibels to triple my headache."

Simon rolled his eyes.

"I'll ask Lindsay then," he muttered and picked up another sheet. His face darkened as he stared at it, then became a little pained. It took a few seconds for Kim to notice his expression. Finally she looked at him properly and asked,

"What's the matter?"

Simon's eyes scanned the sheet. It was a staffing memo that didn't make sense.

"_Date of issue: 20__th__ February 2011. Please note that your new liaison for all use of the Canine Unit at Fenchurch East is Chief Inspector Robin Shoebury-Thomas. For cases involving narcotics, explosives and searches/man hunts which may require the use of dogs please submit all requests through your new liaison officer. Chief Inspector Shoebury-Thomas will be visiting CID on February 28__th__ to discuss the role of the canine division further. His recent promotion comes after his work tracking Arthur Layton and exposing shamed beard model Evan White."_

"Did _you_ put this here?" Simon demanded.

"What?"

"This," he held up the sheet.

"I've not been over there," Kim reminded him.

Simon stared at the sheet in his hand but as he watched the words changed and morphed and turned into a report about the alarming rise of graffiti in the toilets. He blinked and shook his head a little.

"No, wait…" he frowned, "But that was just…" he stared again at the sheet. Just a moment before it had been a report about Robin. There'd been a picture and everything. It was definitely him. Was he hallucinating? Promotion? February 2011?

He felt like a knife had plunged through his heart. He remembered the moment in the car after the crash, seeing Robin beside him, the clear image, so real. There was a part of him that felt sure it _had_ been. How was that possible? And what was all that about Layton? And _Evan?_ Shamed _beard model_? Evan was such a nice guy. Simon could see him being shamed about anything – unless he had a secret razor collection stashed in his bathroom cupboard.

"Hey."

A hand on his shoulder pulled him out of his thoughts. He jumped up and glanced around to see Kim looking worried.

"What?"

"I wondered what was upsetting you so much," said Kim, "you're crying."

"I am?" it was news to Simon. He hadn't even noticed the tears rolling down his face. He wiped them away crossly. "Sorry."

"What's the matter?" she scanned the headline of the memo, "Oh, this isn't about your trouser tent, is it?"

Simon put the paper down and gave a cross sigh.

"No, it bloody isn't," he mumbled. He shook his head. "Maybe it's the drink. Maybe I'm hallucinating."

"What do you mean?"

Simon took a deep breath.

"This paper," he said quietly, "it was different. There was a memo on here about Robin?"

"Robin?"

Simon nodded.

"It was dated two thousand and eleven. February." He paused. "He had a promotion."

Kim stared at him. She wasn't sure what to say. It sounded a little strange but it wouldn't be the first time something similar had happened. Sometimes she would be reading a newspaper and a message from home would filter through in the classifieds then she'd look back and all it would say was _'Lawnmower Wanted'_ or something similar. But she knew messages were filtering through as she lay in a hospital in 2003. Simon was dead back home, so how was he picking up messages?

"Well at least if he got a promotion then he's doing well?" Kim tried to comfort him.

"That's the thing, I don't know _how_ well he is doing," Simon sighed. "When we crashed, for just a moment I saw him there in the car with me, just for a second. Then Alex was back in his place." He was aware how strange that sounded, but he didn't care. It was driving him crazy. "And then this memo said he had tracked Arthur Layton."

"Who?"

"He was on Nailer's list, remember?" said Simon, "We think he built the bomb for him. And he shot Alex in two thousand and eight."

"Why would Robin be tracking him?" asked Kim.

Simon shook his head slowly.

"I have another question," he whispered, "how did Alex get home?"

"What do you mean?" Kim asked quietly.

Simon wasn't altogether sure. There were fragments of things he was only starting to piece together. The car crash, seeing Robin for a second, Gene arriving inexplicably at the scene, his strange 'turn' on the way to hospital, the dream of the hand reaching out to him. Now the memo.

"I don't know," he said, "but there's something happening. Something I can't quite put my finger on."

He stared at the paper, although the words still spoke of toilets and graffiti. That message was for him, he was sure, but he couldn't understand it. He couldn't piece things together yet. He knew he would get there but it might take a little time. There was no longer such a question mark over Robin's safety. He knew now that he was OK but there was something very strange going on with him. He hoped one day he would be able to piece the fragments together to find out what was happening. Until then, the briefest glimpse of Robin's picture and his news sent a warmth through his heart.

_Well done, Robin,_ he thought silently to himself, _it's no more than you deserve._


	91. Chapter 50, 1995: Peu à Peu

_**A/N: A double dose tonight – and tomorrow!**_

**Chapter Fifty**

Alex stared at her reflection in the mirror.

"I've never seen myself with red hair before," she whispered, her own breath taken away a little. It was such a departure from the looks she'd worn of late. She'd grown her hair for _The Rachel_, and before that she'd had a pixie cut for a while. There had been a Zoe Ball phase, but she didn't like to talk about that. It wasn't her most successful look to date.

"And this is some bird that geeky dimwads use to launch their rockets, is it?" Gene asked, surveying the outcome. He was starting to feel he may have judged The X Files a little harshly.

"I think you'll find Gillian Anderson's appeal spreads beyond the world of geek," Alex told him as she played with the sides of the cut.

Gene gave a nod of approval.

"Suddenly I'm feeling the need to get in touch with me inner nerd," he said. He watched Alex's face as she looked at herself in the mirror. She seemed to have regained something; a little of that sparkle. He noted with a little confusion that the fringe seemed to part in an inopportune place, allowing a little of the scar to be seen through it.

Alex noticed where his eyes had focused and the confused look on his face.

"It's OK," she said quietly, "that scar doesn't bother me so much any more." She looked him in the eye. "It shows what I've survived. I'm not ashamed of surviving."

Gene shuddered. Those words had a chilling familiarity.

"Feels like we're all going round in bloody circles," he mumbled.

Alex got to her feet and brushed some little bits of hair from her neck. Her hair was already more or less the right length already but needed a little shaping.

"Hair around the neck is one of my pet peeves," she mumbled.

"We're not getting a bloody pet," Gene commented, only half-listening, "if you can't stand yer own hairs round yer neck you won't put up with cat fur all over yer couch."

Alex felt like a new woman as she walked to the counter to pay for the cut. Her hair tickled her chin and bounced against her forehead. The colour might take some getting used to but it warmed up her pale features.

"I know someone who'd have liked to see this," she said quietly, wondering absently how Robin was doing. Her talk with Gene the night before had started her thinking, wondering exactly what happened after the crash. She owed Robin a great deal for his part in keeping her safe – Kim 2011 and Kelly too. She wished there was a way to thank them but short of shooting a bunch of flowers and a thank-you card in the hope they might wake up in 2011 there was little she could do. Her haircut was a semi-tribute to Robin. That was as close as she could get right then.

"Come on, Scully, back in the car before we get abducted and lose a bloody hour," said Gene.

Alex eyed him suspiciously as she opened the door and left the hairdressers'.

"You've been watching it on the sly," she commented.

"It's a hazard of life when you're stuck bunking down on Shoebury's couch," Gene grunted, "I can tell you all the words to the Red Dwarf theme tune too."

~xXx~

"I've got to go," said Simon.

"Go where?"

"_Go,"_ said Simon. Kim looked at him blankly. "To the toilet!"

"So go," shrugged Kim, "it's not school! You don't have to raise your hand!"

"Gene told us not to move!"

"I think you're allowed in the _bog,"_ Kim told him.

Simon hopped from one foot to the other a little and then decided Kim was right.

"Back in a bit."

Too much black coffee had got the better of him and eventually the cries of his bladder couldn't be ignored. He ran to the toilets, entered the gents', arrived at the urinals and was halfway through unzipping when a glorious array of artwork stopped him in his tracks.

"_What… the…"_

Everything Gene had said was true. A complete wall of graphic imagery involving his trouser tent was on display. Considering Gene was the only one who'd witnessed the event some of the diagrams were fairly accurate. Others, such as the one where a family of four were camping in his trousers, were less so. It also seemed that someone had decided to improve on the original artwork by adding some colour. They'd gotten the tones of his jumper surprisingly accurate.

After getting mad, punching the wall, crying about his painful knuckles and finally relieving himself he left the toilets and prepared to head back to the mound of paperwork but just outside the doorway he spotted something on the ground so he bent down to pick it up. The door swung back and hit him in the backside as he did so, causing him to stumble a little and he end up on the ground.

"My day of humiliation grows ever worse," he mumbled.

He looked around to check no one had seen him and studied the object on the ground. It was a watch, broken across the face. He frowned. Not that a watch was any good to him anyway. Well, only twice a day. An eternity of 11:48 was already getting to him. He couldn't make out if the hands of the broken watch were on 11:48 as well. It was too badly smashed to see. It was ticking, but that didn't mean much. He put it in his pocket and slumped back to CID where he found, to his horror, Gene was back and sitting in his seat.

"Did I give you permission to go for a piss?"

Simon bit his lip and tugged nervously at his hair.

"I thought you'd rather that than come back to a wet office," he said a little tastelessly.

Gene stood up and thrust a slightly hairy X-Files magazine at Simon.

"Anyone knows this has been in my possession and the only thing you'll be kissing is my fist," he said.

Simon gulped.

"Understood," he said.

Gene gave a little sigh as he stepped away from the magazine. Somehow now he was no longer in close personal contact with that object he felt a little better. A little less nerdy. That was good. Now he just had to learn to close his eyes without seeing Simon's slobbering tongue looming at him.

"How's the paperwork coming?" he asked, "lost your will to live yet?"

Simon felt his cheeks glowing a little. _The paperwork._

"Gene, actually, there was one thing –" he picked up the memo about the toilet graffiti and handed it to him. Gene looked at it with a frown.

"Can't get away from your bloody trouser tent," He said.

"No, this sheet… it said something different," he said.

Gene looked at the paper, then at Simon and finally back at the paper.

"What, like '_Wanted: New head of Hi-Tech Crimes to replace DCI Shoebury after his horrific death caused by having a sci-fi magazine jammed severely up his nostril'_?"

Simon drew in his breath.

"It was about Robin," he mumbled quietly.

Gene stared at the memo.

"I thought the graffiti was all about your overactive appendage, I didn't see Batman in the diagrams too."

"No, the _memo_ was about him," Simon wished he'd never started this, "It said he had a promotion and he was liaising with…" he looked up at Gene's expression and saw it confused and disapproving. He shook his head. "Nothing, Forget I spoke."

"Would if I could," said Gene, "but you've got me worried now. Either we've got some nifty invisible ink doing the rounds or you need a night in a cosy padded cell."

"It's true, Gene," sighed Simon, "there's something strange going on. I know it."

"Something strange going on in yer trousers," Gene told him. He glanced at Kim. "Metal Mickey, less earwigging and more stamping!"

"Yes Guv," groaned Kim, her brain slowly melting out of her ear.

"And as for you," Gene turned back to Simon, "You're in charge."

"Guv?"

"Dentist," Gene said, "you knocked me bloody filling loose!"

Simon sank into his chair, his face red with shame, and put his head in his hands.

"Truth or dare, Kim," he groaned, "why did you make me play truth or bloody dare?"

"I never said you had to use tongues," Kim snapped back.

~xXx~

Victoria listened in silence to the man who had paid an unexpected visit that day. She nodded, she tutted, she shook her head. She agreed with every syllable _– every last syllable_ – that he was saying.

"Your men will be removed with immediate effect and our own officers will be taking their place on the door," he told her.

"Of course," Victoria realised she was shaking just a little, "and I completely agree with you, Superintendent…?"

"Fletcher," said Fletcher.

"Fletcher," Victoria repeated. She breathed in deeply as she took in the words. The last few days had been a little bit mysterious to say the least at Fenchurch West. There had been whispers and rumours and a severe lack of DCI Keats at the helm. On the second day, Victoria had been hauled in front of her superiors, asked a lot of questions about Keats and the 'new girl' who had disappeared suddenly too. The end of the mini-interrogation had seen her placed in temporary charge of CID – _again_ – which she was less than pleased about. She'd been through this before, during his 'compassionate leave' and ended up bumped from the top the second he picked up a new toy; a new toy called Alex Drake.

Keats always made out that she was jealous, that she wanted him in some way. The one advantage she felt she had over him was that – no matter how many times he told _himself_ that – it would never be true. She couldn't have been less interested if she tried. The only thing she was in love with was her career, pushing herself up the ladder. She wanted to do her job and do it well, but this was a job made difficult when you worked under Jim Keats.

She felt eternally confused; her memory or arriving so vague and her life made a misery by her DCI. She wondered forever what she was doing there and why she deserved it.

It was as though Fletcher echoed her sentiments.

"How did you end up in a place like this?"

Victoria could only give a half-hearted smile.

"If I knew that, sir, I would find my way back out," she said quietly.

Fletcher gave her a sad look. She was the kind of person he would transfer like a shot. But that wasn't his call.

"Take care, DI Stone," he said, and left the office.

Victoria gave a deep sigh as she watched him leave. Her life was easier while Keats was unconscious, that was undoubtedly true, but if his eyes should open again then darkness would descend as quickly as anything. It was a day she was already dreading.

~xXx~

"I need lattes."

The booming voice was not unexpected. It was, after all, half past 2 and time for Gene's third latte of the afternoon.

"How many?" Simon sighed as he got to his feet.

"Two. And two black coffees, for you and Metal Mickey."

"Oh, no more black coffees," begged Simon, his whole innards sloshing with the stuff, "we're bloody sober!"

"Then make it three lattes," said Gene, "can't seem to get this funny taste out my mouth. Wonder what that could be?"

His glare sent Simon whimpering for his coat.

"How many times can I say sorry?" he cried.

"Oh yeah," Gene continued, "That's right – it's tongue of Shoebury!"

He turned around and flounced into his office, slamming the door to set Kim and Simon's heads off again.

Kim was looking on in shock.

"He wiggled his arse at me!" she cried.

"Oh, he did not."

"He did!" Kim cried, "he bloody thinks I _do_ have a thing about his bottom!"

"At least he's not been gargling mouthwash in front of you for the last hour," mumbled Simon. He threw his coat on and left before Gene could change his mind and send him for toothpaste instead.

He tried to ignore the wet sleet as he pulled his coat around him. It was cold, grey and miserable. Just how Simon felt. He walked past the leather shop on his way , then took a step back and peered in the window. That jacket was still there.

"I bet Gene never sent Sam bloody Tyler to buy his lattes," he mumbled dejectedly.

"_Sam bloody Tyler never gave him a drunken snog,"_ said a voice.

Simon spun around but there didn't seem to be anyone else there.

"Who said that?" he said quickly, but no reply came. He tried looking in the other direction. He peered in the shop. He looked across the road. But it was uncharacteristically quiet and he truly was alone. A chill ran through his spine and settled in the pit of his stomach. This didn't seem like a good time or place to hang around.

He picked up his heels and hot-footed it to Latte Land. Whoever had spoken, they weren't there now – and Simon didn't particularly want to be there either.


	92. Chapter 51, 1995: Scatenato

_**A/N: tonight's second chapter!**_

**Chapter Fifty One**

Simon was in a fairly bad state by the time he arrived back in CID. His long wait for lattes had given his mind time to wander and it wandered straight into a slow-motion replay of the night before. By the time the lattes were ready he was in dire need of them to be used as a tent disguise. Then passing the leather shop the memory of the strange voice had given him a shiver that led to him spilling lattes all over the area he was trying to cover up. By the time he arrived back at the station he was fast becoming as pissed off as Gene.

He stormed into his office, plonked the drinks on the desk, spun around before Gene could see the result of the spillage and make accusations and mumbled,

"Lattes."

Kim watched him as he escaped Gene's office and took a seat at his desk again. She tried to stifle a giggle.

"Couldn't wait until you got back, hmm?"

"Oh shut up, Kim," Simon put his hand to his head and tried to distract himself with paper work.

Kim frowned a little. He seemed different.

"What's the matter?"

"Aside from the fact that I almost melted off some vital body parts with boiling latte?" he snapped.

Kim stared at him. He was shaking.

"Yes," she said, "apart from that."

Simon glanced up. She could see there was something wrong. She could see something was going on. He looked away and shook his head a little.

"I think I'm cracking up, Kim," he said

"Why? What now?" she asked, "Oh, you didn't steal Gene's _'banned'_ poster from Latte Land did you? We're not hanging that on the wall."

Simon looked at her.

"I heard a voice," he said.

"Yes, that's what happens when people speak to you. It's called conversation."

"I was outside a shop, looking at a…" he paused, "_an item_ in the window, and I mumbled something and someone replied, but when I looked around there was no one there."

Kim frowned. She wasn't sure what to say to that.

"W-what kind of a voice?" she asked.

It sounded dumb but it happened so fast that Simon honestly couldn't remember.

"A male voice," was as far as he could recall. Beyond that it could have been someone of any age, any accent, any nationality, he couldn't even remember how loudly or softly the voice had spoken.

Kim stared at him. It seemed like something strange was brewing that day. Something beyond the hangovers and the Gene-inflicted day of punishment. Something surrounding Simon.

"Is this anything to do with what happened earlier?" she asked, "the memo you saw?"

"I wish I knew," Simon was starting to feel genuinely spooked. He pulled the broken watch from his pocket and laid it on the desk. Now he was studying it, it looked somewhat familiar to him. He couldn't place it though.

"What's that?"

He glanced up at Kim.

"Oh, it's just a watch," he said, "a broken one. I found it down the corridor, outside the gents." He thought he could see the second hand move a little but beneath the cracks it was hard to know for sure. "I was going to take it to lost property."

"Do they have a _broken_ property department?" Kim wondered.

"Doubt it," said Simon. He heard a peculiar noise in the air and looked around before attributing it to Kim's stomach. "Have you eaten?" she shook her head. "Sounds like it's time to lay a visit to the canteen."

Kim shook her head again.

"No, Simon, believe me," she said, "whatever my stomach just told you if I try to eat anything you're going to see a repeat of the accident I definitely didn't have on your sofa…"

Simon got to his feet.

"No, Kim," he said, "I don't think you understand. It's time for you to pay a visit to the canteen." He raised his eyebrow and stared pointedly at her. It took several moments for the post-dated dare from the night before to come back to her and when it did she gave a little gasp of horror. She began to protest that she didn't know what he was talking about but it was too late. He'd already seen that instance of recognition. "It's time to find out just how big that backside is!"

"No, no, no, no," Kim backed away in her chair, "I'm not doing it."

"You gave me your word."

"In the cold light of day I am seeing sense!"

"In the cold light of day you'll be seeing your status as an X-files fan posted on every notice board around the station," said Simon, "now get on your feet. It's arse pinching time!"

Kim closed her eyes and gave an elongated groan of despair.

"Like _your_ dare worked out oh-so-well for us," she mumbled.

"_Now,"_ Simon said forcefully. He stepped back and folded his arms, waiting for her to pass, which she did with a sigh. He was going to enjoy this. Every last second.

~xXx~

It was getting on now and the canteen was running down its food for the day. By the time Simon and Kim arrived there was little left.

"I told you, I don't want anything to eat," Kim hissed as Simon thrust a tray into her hands.

"You need a cover," Simon told her. He threw an apple and a chocolate bar on the tray and they shuffled along the counter together.

"How am I supposed to pinch her backside when she's round the other side of the counter?" Kim hissed.

"You'll think of something," Simon told her, "create a diversion."

"Can I help you dear?" the woman with the incredibly large backside came towards the counter, her bottom wobbling and wiggling as she did so.

Kim hesitated. Her mouth dropped open but she struggled for words.

"Uh…" she began, with a gulp, "I'd like," she flinched as she said the words. _"some sprouts please."_

There was a moment of silence.

Then the woman's expression spoke volumes. She looked as though_ all_ of her Christmases had come at once.

"You _want_ the _sprouts?"_ she could hardly contain her excitement as she took out a bowl and a ladle and began piling up a veritable sprout mountain.

Kim swallowed.

"I thought sprouts were supposed to be hard and round," she said.

"They are," frowned Simon.

"_These_ aren't," said Kim.

The sprouts had become so soggy and floppy that they had turned into a strange kind of sprout jelly. The sight of it almost sent them both reeling for the toilets but they just about held their nerve as she served up. It wasn't encouraging her to leave the confines of the counter though, and Simon was starting to fear that he would never see Kim fulfilling her dare. However, he had a sudden idea that was sure to bring her scooting out from behind the barrier.

"Oh _no!"_ he cried suddenly, "you've knocked some sprouts over the side! They're all over the floor?"

"_What?"_ the woman cried, "Oh _bugger!"_ With her ladle in one hand and a mop in the other she raced out from behind the counter and around to where Simon and Kim were standing. "Where are they?"

"There, just there…" Simon pointed.

The woman couldn't see them. She got on all fours for a closer look.

"I can't see anything there…" she began.

In that moment, Kim felt like time stood still. She felt a tremble through her body and her heart rate shot up. She stared at the enormous backside facing them. She looked at Simon's expectant dare.

_Think 'Father Ted',_ she told herself. _Think Kicking Bishop Brennan up the Arse. Do it. Act innocent. Pretend it never happened._

She steeled herself.

_Oh shit…_

With a deep breath and a terrified gulp she stooped down, aimed her fingers at the unfeasibly large backside and gave it a hard pinch.

Before she knew it she was back on her feet, hands behind her back, an innocent expression on her face. There was a second; one terrible, torturous second before the woman stood up and spun around.

_This is it,_ Kim mumbled, _this is the part where I die. I die at the hands of the woman with the fat arse and a sprout fixation. At least Simon's here to send me on. _

The woman stared.

Kim gulped.

"You… little…" she began, holding the ladle aloft and bringing it down hard over Simon's head, _"bastard!"_

"_What?"_ cried Simon as he clutched his head, "what the fuck did _I _do?"

"You dirty pervert!" she cried, hitting him again.

"_OW!_ It wasn't me!" he protested.

"Well who else would it be?"

"It was her!" Simon blabbed, an angry Kim glaring back.

"Nonsense. Nice sprout-loving girl like her wouldn't do a thing like that."

She bopped Simon on the head one last time leaving sprout entrails, if there were such a thing, in his dark blonde waves.

"_Shit!"_ Simon cried, _"leg it!"_

As he fled from the canteen with Kim in tow, her giggles increasing with every step, he began to think that he was most likely cursed. His day of humiliation had reached the point of no return now. He might as well get himself a jester's hat and sit in the corner, hitting himself with a stupid stick.

~xXx~

Alex had spent the day getting used to her new look, putting back everything the other _her_ had moved or changed and wondering what the hell Simon did to Gene. By the time Gene arrived home that evening he was looking a little less like a zombie but still smelt very strongly of mouthwash.

"Gene," she breathed, "I've been worried about you all day."

Gene was relieved to return home and put Simon out of his head for a while. The end of the day had managed to get even worse as he'd gone to bark some final instructions at the hung over pair before leaving, only to find that a large proportion of Simon's hair had taken on a green hue. A head full of sprouts was never going to be a good look.

Still, everything would be OK now. It was the end of the day, there was a brand new bottle of scotch awaiting his return home and he had his very own Agent Scully lookalike waiting for him. Life didn't get much better than that.

"You are a sight for sore eyes," he said with a sigh.

"You don't look well," Alex commented. The many showers, gallons of mouth wash and extra lattes had taken their toll.

"I've hard a hard day," he said, but hisw turn of phrase made him think of trouser tents, "I mean, I was glad to kiss it goodbye. I mean, it was in-tents… intense… I mean -" he stopped and cursed himself. Everything that came to mind reminded him of bloody Simon.

"I think you need to sit down and tell me what's going on," Alex told him sternly. She pushed him lightly onto the leather couch and thrust a glass of scotch into his hand. She pulled his legs up with some difficulty until he was lying across it and sat down beside him. "Come on. Talk to me."

"I feel like I'm at the bloody psychiatrist, woman!" Gene cried.

"So start talking."

Gene closed his eyes.

"I don't really want to relive my most traumatic experience, thank you," he said.

"Oh come on, Gene, it can't have been that bad." She fluttered her eyelashes in a cheesy fashion. "You tell me now, we take our dinner to bed and I'll spend the night taking your mind off it. How's that?"

Gene looked at her.

"Can we skip straight to the going to bed part?" he asked.

"Not if you're going to have a face like that," said Alex, "you look like you've been kissing a frog."

"A frog would have been preferable," Gene mumbled.

Alex froze.

"So you've been kissing _someone?"_ she accused.

"Someone's been kissing _me,"_ Gene muttered, "there's a difference."

Alex's confusion and paranoia began to grow. She stared at Gene, her eyes widening and her mouth open a little.

"Who?" she demanded, "Who the hell could you have… been…" she trailed off at the mortified look on Gene's face as the pieces began to slot into place. "Oh _Gen_e…" To Gene's horror, Alex cupped her face and began to laugh.

"I'm glad you think it's bloody funny, woman!" he cried.

"Oh no, no_, no,"_ Alex shook her head and bit her lip but she couldn't stop the corners of her mouth twitching up. It was like a replay of Simon's response to Gene's off-duty policeman.

"You might be laughing now but it won't be so funny when I wake up screaming in the middle of the bloody night!"

"No, Gene, no, not funny at all," she put her hand over her mouth to hide her smile but her shoulders were rising and falling rapidly with her steadily increasing giggles.

"Some bloody psychiatrist you've turned out to be," Gene cried, dropping his legs to the floor.

"No, no, stay there," Alex told him, pushing his legs back on the couch, "come on, you might as well tell me the whole terrible truth."

Gene's eyes focused on her. He could see she was about to giggle again at any moment.

"One laugh from you… just one… and I'm off to bed, on me own, with dinner."

"Understood," Alex fought back a smirk.

Gene stared and sighed. It would be good to get that secret off his chest. Or, off his lips in this case.

"Bloody Shoebury," he mumbled, "actually, no, it was _your _fault for going all Gillian Anderson on me. If I hadn't gone to borrow that bloody nerd publication I wouldn't have ever had the misfortune to taste Shoebury's kissing lips."

An image of Simon as a Spitting Image-esque puppet with giant rubber lips came into Alex's mind and she almost got the giggles again but turned them into a strained hiccup and just about got away with it.

"Carry on," she said.

Gene's face grew troubled.

"I made the mistake of letting meself in. And Shoe-Boy was waiting there, like he knew I was coming, grabbed me by the collar and pulled me in for a –" he shuddered from head to toe, "well, put it this way, I've got more insight on what it's like to be Robin than I ever wanted to have."

"But why did he do it?" Alex asked.

"Deathwish. Or a dare. Either way," Gene got to his feet. "Right. Now you know; you – bedroom – now."

Alex raised an eyebrow.

"This isn't a part of your psychological assessment," she told him.

"You're going to do what ten showers, thirty lattes and twenty gallons of mouthwash have failed to do," Gene told her, grabbed her by the wrist and led her away to banish the memory of his unexpected Shoebury snog.

~xXx~

"I think that's the last of it," Simon mumbled as he roughly dried his hair. It had taken three washes to remove all of the sprouts but finally he was certain he no longer resembled the least popular part of the festive lunchtime fare.

"I am sorry," Kim said, not sounding at all apologetic, "but you have to admit it was funny."

"Oh, hilarious," said Simon, "as hilarious as homicide." He sat down as he finished drying his hair and threw the towel to the floor. He'd given up with the blow drying now. He'd started to lose his sense of pride in his appearance. The jumper was testament to that. He'd more or less lost his sense of self. This world was doing him no good.

"Well, never mind," Kim said, "let's have a quiet night in, I'll get some food, you get your X-Files videos and we'll have a secret X-Phile night, just the two of us."

"I'm going out, Kim, you know that," Simon said as he got to his feet and took off the jumper. He walked to his room and started rooting through for something to wear.

"I just thought you might have changed your mind," Kim said.

"Why?"

Kim sighed.

"It's not exactly been the best day, has it?" she pointed out, "I thought we could probably both use a night to recover from yesterday."

Simon re-emerged, buttoning up a shirt.

"I'm going to _Bask,"_ he said, "Lindsay and a couple of her friends are coming."

Kim looked at him a little anxiously. She started to wish she hadn't tried to teach him how to drink. He seemed to have taken to it rather too well.

"Simon, be careful," she said.

"What do you mean?" Simon asked, checking his reflection in the mirror.

"Last night was fun, but…" she sighed, "I've _done_ that lifestyle. I've had the daily hangovers and the mysterious bruises and the traffic cone in my bed. I got that out my system and… and I wouldn't go back. Not for anything. I've seen what it can do. I've been there."

"Yeah, well," Simon finished parting his hair a little with his fingers and turned around, "maybe it's my turn now."

"I'm worried about you, Simon," she said.

"I'm only going for a few drinks," he told her.

"A few drinks you're not used to," said Kim, "You won't be like the others. They'll all be on their third drink and you'll be asleep under the table."

"I think I managed alright last night," Simon said a little haughtily.

"At least eat before you go out," said Kim, "you can't drink on an empty stomach."

"Not hungry," said Simon.

"I was about to make something," said Kim, "I finally feel like I can look at a sandwich without a dash to the bathroom."

"Well enjoy your sandwich," Simon picked up his coat and his wallet, "see you later." He opened the door, "don't wait up."

"Be careful," Kim called after him but the door was already closing.

She closed her eyes for a second. His behaviour was starting to worry her a little. She could see a glimpse of herself in him. Her arrival in Gene's world was so full of angst and confusion that she'd wanted to bury it all in booze. Their game of truth or dare the night before had raised a few things about Simon that worried her. He was lonely - lonelier than she realised, deeply troubled and a big ball of angst. All he needed now was to get a few piercings and sleep with Keats and he'd have the _Kim Special_ down perfectly.


	93. Chapter 52, 1995: Ritardando

_**A/N: Yes, two chapters tonight, but one tomorrow as it's finally time for Come Dine With Me, and a word or warning… expect my typos to increase as I've been using my old laptop with the malfunctioning keyboard for some of this!**_

**Chapter Fifty Two**

Kim was awoken at one a.m. by someone sitting on her. She screamed, started to hit them and jumped off the couch before she realised it was Simon.

"What the bloody hell are you doing?" she cried.

"I told you not to wait up," Simon's voice was a little strange.

"I sleep on the couch, where else was I going to be?"

Simon gave a funny laugh and swamped Kim with a hug in the darkness.

"I sang _threeeeee _songs," he told her, his voice an octave higher than usual, "and I only forgot the words to two of them!"

"That's _lovely,"_ Kim bundled Simon away from her and started to frogmarch him through to his bedroom, "but right now what you need is sleep. Sleep, and lots of water."

"I got a _biiiiiiiig _cake!" he told her.

"Did you now?" Kim mumbled, pushing him gently but firmly onto the bed before taking his shoes off.

"Dropped it though," Simon mumbled, "in a puddle."

"Very sorry to hear that," Kim mumbled. She stepped back and put her hands on her hips. "Simon, look at the state of you. It's like looking at Gene after Alex threw him out all over again." She paused, "Except with slightly curlier hair."

But already Simon was fast asleep, his mouth falling open in a gentle snore and his eyes closed as the alcohol sent him into that deep blanket of sleep he craved. Kim sighed deeply. The evolution of this new Simon was heart-breaking to watch.

~xXx~

As the week passed a few changes befell the members of CID. The first was that Gene noticed Simon turning up in dark glasses on a daily basis with alka-seltzers tucked in his pocket. While he was a long way from forgiving him for the tongue sandwich fiasco he had started to grow concerned about his behaviour. He recognised self-destruction. It was one of his own special skills so he'd learnt to see it in other people. He hoped that whatever was affecting Simon so deeply would cease so he could return to the Simon he knew.

Alex had started to adjust a little more to being back in 1995. She had ups and downs. Sometimes it felt as though she had more downs than ups. She had started to truly take back her body, to love it again, to push away the knowledge of what happened when she wasn't the one in control. Her new haircut became her and she began adjusting her wardrobe slightly to fit her new look.

She had moments where her experience haunted her. There would be times she would awaken in the night with a scream from a nightmare about the tape, or moments of confusion where she would expect Robin to be somewhere nearby. She found she missed his friendship more than she felt able to express. She hadn't seen Simon since her memories of 2011 started to return but she knew that when she did she would have a difficult decision to make, to tell him or not to tell him. She didn't know whether it would do Simon well to know that Robin had helped her so much or whether it would hurt him to think of Robin out there without him.

The thought of the _other her_ and the actions she watched on the tape still plagued her. She knew it plagued Gene as well. They were doing a very good job of skirting around it and trying to ignore it. Keats was the big white elephant who'd come to stay for Christmas and he wasn't going to be easy to shift, not when Alex still felt sullied and dirty. That Gene was able to look past it and give her the passion and affection she craved helped somewhat, but she knew that he had moments where it hit him all over again too. She wondered if they would ever truly put it in the past.

She felt a little strange and awkward as she walked through the station on the way to her meeting with Fletcher. She'd been dreading it. What her other self had said to the Super, she really didn't know. She had no idea what the repercussions would be for her, or for Gene. She waited in CID to try to overcome her nerves a little and was thrilled to have a distraction when Kim came bursting in, full of excitement.

"Hey!" she announced to anyone and everyone in the area, "look at my tattoo!"

A nosy selection of people crowded around to look at her arm where a large piece had been completed that day. Terry and Bammo were particularly interested, while Poirot was more concerned with making out that Kim probably cried her way through it, a suggestion which earned him a hard kick up the backside.

"Can I see?" asked Alex.

Kim did a double take as she spotted her for the first time with her new haircut, a complete revelation to her. Gene's bizarre magazine-borrowing incident began to make a lot more sense in this context, but the sight of Alex with the Scully look sent her knees into jelly.

"My god, Ma'am!" she practically swooned over a desk, "look what you've done to your hair!"

Alex felt a little emotional as she looked at Kim, barely more than a kid compared to the Kim she came to know in 2011. Seeing her so young and free, without the shackles of the fear that waking from her coma brought she felt a little sadness. It was such a mixed bag, she thought. On the one hand Kim had a massive amount of adjustment ahead. On the other hand she had a whole new life to lead – new career, a wife, children – she couldn't tell her, she knew that much. It wouldn't be right. She realised that she would hate for someone to tell her what was ahead in her own future. She would rather not know.

She smiled a little distantly as Kim's eyes sparkled in awe at her new look and her rambling tongue almost gave away her dirty little X-Files secret to the rest of CID.

Finally she was able to see Kim's tattoo and smiled. It was cruder than the one she'd seen in 2011 upon the top of her arm but some of the basic elements were there.

"I designed it myself," Kim said proudly.

Alex gave a thin smile.

"You've got real talent there," she said, "maybe you can put it to good use one day."

Kim looked away a little shyly.

"Nah," she said quietly, "I don't see how." She looked at the tattoo on her arm.

"Don't forget to keep it clean and moisturised," said Alex.

Kim frowned.

"Since when did you become an expert on tattoos?" she frowned.

Alex's smile wobbled a little.

"Oh, I had a… _friend_… who was into it," she said distantly, "that's all." She gave a funny little smirk. "It won't travel through time-zones when you go back home," she said.

Kim frowned.

"It might."

Alex smiled. She'd learn.

"You with the Bollinger in your knickers," Gene's arrival was as understated as always, "Fletcher's ready and waiting. Time to divert the men in white coats."

Alex chewed anxiously on her lip as she slowly got to her feet.

"I suppose it's now or never," she sighed.

Gene waited for her to walk past then laid one palm flatly against her back, the touch of support, the gesture of warmth offered out of sight where the others couldn't see. She smile she gave was nervous but grateful. She picked up her pace a little as they made their way to his office. Now it was here she just wanted to get it out of the way.

**X**

Fletcher looked up as the knock sounded at the door and made sure he wasn't trying to sneakily complete a crossword this time. He'd learnt that lesson the last time Gene had stepped in his office.

"Come in," he called out. The door slowly opened and a pair of slightly hesitant DCIs stepped inside.

"Good morning, Sir," Alex said quietly.

"DCI Drake, it's good to see you looking yourself again," Fletcher began looking her in the eye, then his gaze travelled up to her hair, "Or looking… well, different. That's a very fetching look." He wondered momentarily if he'd crossed the pond and wound up in the FBI.

"Thank you, Sir," Alex said quietly.

Fletcher looked at Gene.

"I'll speak with Alex first," he said, "Take a seat outside."

Gene looked a little frustrated at his instruction.

"Now I definitely feel like I've been set to the headmaster for smoking behind the bike sheds," he mumbled.

Fletcher waited for Gene to close the door then indicated a chair to Alex.

"Take a seat," he said. He noted how nervous she looked. He tried to put her at ease. "I once made the mistake of saying that to DCI Hunt. He literally stole the damn thing. It's still in his office now."

Despite herself Alex's lips twitched into a smile.

"Why didn't you take it back, sir?" she asked.

"DCI Hunt is not a force to be reckoned with on three subjects," Fletcher continued, "His car, his office furniture," he paused, "and you." He watched her look down a little as she sank into the chair. "Alex, Gene was extremely insistent that I should give you time. After you last came in here, I –"

"Sir," Alex interrupted, "can I explain?"

Fletcher stared at her. He wasn't sure how she _could_ explain but it was worth a try.

"Go on," he prompted.

Alex took a deep breath.

"After I was shot," she tried to put things into 'real' terms, things he would understand, "I was very torn. I was being pulled between two choices and," she paused a little, biting her lip. Bloody hell, Robin's bad habits had really started to sink in. What was she going to do next, start raiding people's kitchens for ingredients? "And I think that the choice was too hard." She thought Fletcher's look was a little blank and tried to rescue her speech, "I wasn't in my right mind before. I was open to persuasion. I am stronger now."

Fletcher nodded slowly. She seemed stronger.

"And DCI Keats?" he asked.

Alex took a deep breath and tried not to flinch.

"_DCI Keats"_ she spat out the word, "has an elaborate way of tricking people. If you have not already done so I would give his station a thorough search for noxious gasses."

Fletcher recalled poor Victoria and her downhearted response to his questions about Keats. He wished that he had any kind of authority over that station. But his power extended to Fenchurch East only.

"DCI Keats is in a deep coma," he began, "and I have made sure that it's our men standing outside that room, just in case he decides to open his eyes any time soon."

Alex felt a little relieved to hear that at least.

"Thank you, sir," she said quietly.

Fletcher looked at her seriously.

"The complaint of sexual harassment," he began, "against DCI Hunt."

Alex cringed. She couldn't believe the other_ her_ had done such a thing.

"I had amnesia," she tried to explain it away, "I couldn't remember who he was and I thought he was just trying to," she closed her eyes for a second. This was not the easiest conversation she'd ever had, "to _get fresh_ with me." She cringed a little at her own turn of phrase. "Sir, my memory is fully restored now and so is my drive to get back to work."

Fletcher stared at her for a long time. She did seem very together now. There was something different in her eyes.

"How are you physically?" he asked.

"Right as rain," Alex said. It was a little white lie. Physically she was drained and weak but her mental energy made up for that.

Fletcher nodded.

"Consider yourself reinstated," he said, "effective immediately."

A look of relief washed over Alex's face and she closed her eyes for just a second.

"Thank you, sir," she said quietly. She got to her feet as Fletcher did the same.

"Welcome back, DCI Drake," he said, "the station was falling apart without you."

"Oh, I don't know about that sir," Alex said a little coyly.

Fletcher gave her a nod.

"Ask DCI Hunt to come in next, please," he said.

"Of course," said Alex. She gave a grateful smile and left the office, nudging Gene in the right direction.

Fletcher looked at Gene a little anxiously.

"Gene," he began.

Gene closed the door behind him.

"Yes, _Sir,"_ Gene tried to behave himself.

"DCI Drake appears to be fit to return to duty," Fletcher told him, "she can begin as soon as she feels ready.

Gene nodded.

"A good decision, Sir," he said.

"Your handling of her… unfortunate turn was noble," Fletcher told him.

Gene tried not to make a face.

"I'll get me horse and armour," he said, "is there anything else? Only, I've got scum to catch. And a three course meal to plan."

Fletcher assumed the three course meal was a joke. At least he hoped it was. That would be one free dinner he would not accept for anything.

"Fine," he said, "You may leave."

"Thank you," said Gene, but as he turned around Fletcher called,

"Oh, Gene?"

Gene hesitated and sighed. Then he turned back round.

"Yes, sir?"

Fletcher swallowed.

"Would you like to have a go at explaining to me why there were stars all over my ceiling while DCI Drake had her '_turn'?"_

Gene hesitated. He stared at Fletcher. His eyes held the real questions and Gene wasn't sure he had enough answers. Finally, he cleared his throat.

"Maybe you should try a new interior designer, _sir,"_ he said, and left the office before he could dwell for too long on what losing Alex may have meant for the world.


	94. Chapter 53, 1995: Segno

_**A/N: The second chapter tonight**_

**Chapter Fifty Three**

"I need your menu."

Gene looked up slowly as the door to his office opened and Simon asked the question Gene had been dreading.

"Clams," he said.

Days had passed and Christmas was almost upon them, but _Come Dine With Me_ was still looming large. Despite all their best attempts neither Gene nor Alex nor Kim had managed to get out of it. And they had tried – _boy_ had they tried.

None of them wished to be involved. Gene's cookery skills extended to anything that could float in lard, Alex was still exhausted from her accident and shooting while Kim just hated cooking, full stop.

"Clams?"

Gene stared at Simon. He saw a slightly doubtful look on his f\ace.

"Yes. Clams."

Simon blinked.

"Are you sure you know how to cook them?" he asked.

"Just because I am the picture of rugged masculinity does not mean I can't turn me hand to haute cuisine," Gene lied.

"You can do something more simple if you want," Simon told him, "a fry up… cheese and onion pie?"

"_Clams!"_ Gene thumped his fist on the desk, "I am cooking clams. Now one more bit of cheek from you and those clams will be force fed to you up the wrong end."

Simon gulped.

"Fine," he said, "what about the rest of your menu?"

"What about it?"

"Well, have you got one for a start?" Simon asked.

Gene hesitated. He hadn't thought beyond the clams. He tried to think of anything that sounded poncy enough. Anything at all. Anything that he might have picked up accidentally when there was a cooking show on in the background or had taken an accidental glimpse of a cookery book.

"Why do you need me bloody menu now?" he asked, "can't you just wait until you're shovelling it down your gob tomorrow?"

Things connected to Simon's gob were still a sore point.

"I need the menu so I can get some copies done," he told Gene.

"Why?"

"So that everyone_ has_ a copy."

Gene stared at Simon. He didn't like this. Not at all.

"Simon," he began, "Alex will get a five star preview of the culinary delights I shall be cooking up. She lives with me, unless you hadn't noticed. And look – what a coincidence – you live with Kim! So you can tell 'er yourself. All sorted."

"Oh_, play along,_ Gene!" Simon pleaded.

Gene scowled. He just wanted Simon out of his office so he could get on with writing his Christmas cards. To Gene, writing his Christmas cards involved stamping them with the '_Property of Gene Hunt, Fenchurch_ East' stamp and blotting out the _'Property of'_ bit with tipp-ex. With a sigh, he got a sheet of paper, scribbled a few lines and handed them to Simon. Simon stared at it for a few moments. Then he looked back at Gene.

"You have no fucking idea what you've written down here, do you?"

"_Language,"_ Gene warned.

Simon simply shook his head, turned around and walked out, clutching a sheet of paper on which was written; _"Starter: Pate and other poncey crap, Main: Clams and Dolphin-Nose Potatoes, Dessert: Mee-rangs or whatever they're called, stuff with egg whites."_

"Delicious," he mumbled.

~xXx~

Kim wasn't happy as she surrendered her menu to Simon. The last thing she wanted to do was to cook. She hated cooking for herself, let alone three other people who were going to be scoring her out of ten. She gave Simon a minus eight for even coming up with the idea.

"Thank you," said Simon as he glanced at it. He frowned. "Well, I suppose some of this is at least actual food, as opposed to Gene's."

Kim scowled.

"I didn't even want to get involved in this," she pointed out.

Simon tucked the menu in his pocket.

"Anyway, are you coming to the Christmas _doo_ tonight?" he asked.

Kim sighed. She really didn't feel much like it if she was honest. The closer it got to Christmas the lower she felt about being away from her family. Simon the Scrooge wasn't helping either. Although he was only too happy to attend the Christmas CID bash in _Bask _that night he wouldn't get a tree or any decorations and wasn't interested in celebrating the festive season in any more of an explicit fashion than buying the odd present. And knowing Simon, they would actually _be_ 'odd' presents too.

It wasn't that he was a scrooge by nature. Usually he loved Christmas. He loved Christmas when he knew he would be waking up with Robin, swapping presents and having a lazy morning in bed before heading to his father's for Christmas lunch. He would miss all the little moments that he was used to – Robin trying to take over the cooking, his sisters complaining about how much weight they'd gained through the hundred and one parties they'd been to, his father attempting and failing to crack open a walnut with his bare hands, the usual family argument about what to watch after the Queen's Speech, which – he had to admit – he would go to any lengths to avoid. One year he recalled hiding in the shed with Robin under the pretence of checking the brand of lawnmower his father owned.

It was his first Christmas away from Robin and his family. His first Christmas away from home, in a strange world. He didn't really feel much like celebrating.

"Kim, you going?" he asked again.

"I suppose so," Kim said eventually, "but I'm not going to stay out late. Christmas bonus is in… I've got my appointment for my nipple piercings in the morning."

Simon reeled back in horror.

"Urgh! Kim!" he cried, slamming his hand to his mouth, "did I need to know that? No I didn't!"

A delighted Kim saw a way to get rid of Simon and his menus for a while.

"I had them done before, but left them out for too long and they closed up…" she carried on.

"That's enough!" Simon cried, heading out the door, "no more! I'm not listening to any more of this!"

"They put them in a clamp to pierce them you know!" Kim cried after him, doubling up in laughter as he raced from the room. That was it – she'd found her ultimate Shoebury-removal tool now. That would surely come in handy for many months to come.

~xXx~

It was the first time Gene and Alex had been in _Bask_ since the night Robin went home. It had been their last night before the world almost came crashing down around them. On that night Susannah and Malcolm had been there, both were now long gone.

"I don't know any of these people," Alex said quietly as she stared at the new faces from CID.

Gene took a mouthful of beer and sighed. He was almost in the same boat. The reset button had been pressed just before the shooting; out with the old and in with the new. While Alex had been out of commission since then through one way and another, Gene had been so busy trying to get _his _Alex back that he barely knew them.

There were some familiar faces too. Terry was belting out _So This Is Christmas_, Bammo was trying out the mistletoe, unsuccessfully, Kim was sitting on her own with something extremely non-alcoholic sitting in front of her and an inebriated Simon was on the dance floor attempting to strut his funky stuff.

"What is wrong with this picture?" Gene commented, indicating both Simon and Kim in turn.

Alex couldn't quite comprehend the change in Kim from ladette to what Gene would describe as being a 'member of the lemonade patrol'. It wasn't as though she'd turned teetotal but gone were the days of the drinking binges and the whole lifestyle she used to thrive upon. In contrast, Simon was getting the hang of drinking and enjoying boozy nights out down the karaoke bar with Lindsay and various people he'd met around the station.

"When did Simon turn into…" she frowned, "…into _you?_ You've been encouraging him to drink, haven't you?"

"Not entirely my fault," said Gene. He knew he was partly to blame. He'd been too quick to offer Simon the bottle and keep passing it his way until he drank some. Now he'd started to acquire a taste for it and Gene started to worry about him. He felt a little guilty for his part in introducing Simon to alcohol, although Kim wasn't entirely blameless. Her lesson in drinking had worked out a little too well.

"This place isn't all it used to be," sighed Alex, "is it?"

"You're not wrong, Lady B," Gene agreed, "beer's goen downhill, karaoke list is full of cheese and the DJ might as well be sticking his backside on the turntable for all his taste is worth."

"Maybe it's time to find a new local," Alex sighed, "Time to move on."

"_Someone's_ still enjoying it here," said Gene, watching as Simon's trousers somehow made their way from his legs onto his head. His Garfield boxers did little to enhance the scene.

"A new local…" Alex said again. She looked at Gene, slightly alarmed, "Simon doesn't have one yet," she whispered, "does he? A _'local'?"_

Gene took in a deep breath and let it out slowly.

"Plenty of time for that, Drakey," he said, "let him settle first. He won't be taking anyone to the pub for a while."

"But it could be…?" she asked.

Gene sipped from his pint and nodded.

"Possible."

Alex gave a tiny smile at the thought of that. It would be fitting considering the connection the place had with Simon, where he and Robin shared their final moments.

"That would be nice," she said quietly.

Gene's expression filled with alarm suddenly.

"Bollocks, Shoebury's drunk in charge of mistletoe," he cried.

"Gene, he's still not looking you in the eye from last time," said Alex, "he's not going to attempt a repeat!"

"I'm not risking it, I'm still getting the night sweats and flashbacks," Gene shuddered. He downed his pint and got to his feet. "I'm taking you home to see if Santa's left me anything nice in me stocking yet."

"In… _whose_ stockings…?" Alex gave a slight smile.

Gene raised an eyebrow. His decision to leave early was looking better all the time.

"Home. Now. Merry bloody Christmas," he said and dragged her from the bar before she had chance to even finish her drink.

~xXx~

Simon wasn't sure how Kim had managed to drag him along. It was bad enough that he was up at such an ungodly hour on his day off, even worse for the fact that his head was throbbing and his guts were churning, _and _he'd found a piece of mistletoe stuck in a strange place. Worse than that, he was supposed to be getting ready for the first night of his _Come Dine With Me_ plan – or, as he was calling it much to the annoyance of the others, _Come Dine With CID._ He'd already taken several physical acts of violence over that one.

But worse – even worse than _all _of that – he was accompanying Kim for her rather personal piercings.

"I'm not holding your hand," he warned.

"Good!" cried Kim, "last thing I want is you standing there while I whip them out."

"_Ugh,"_ Simon held his stomach, "I'm feeling delicate enough without your… "

"My what?"

"Your _tit talk!"_ Simon concluded.

"That's a tactful way of putting it," said Kim, folding her arms, "and besides, I am so insulted that you think I need a hand to hold." They came to the doorway of the tattoo and piercing studio and she turned to him. "I might need to hold your hand to deal with the horror of Gene Hunt's attempt at cooking clams tonight though." She paused. "What was he serving with them?"

"Oh, I don't know," sighed Simon, "bottle-nosed dolphins or something?"

Kim wrinkled up her nose.

"I am hoping that's a mistake," she commented. She noticed Simon was looking twitchy and nervous. "Look, you don't _have_ to come in. Why don't you go in the café next door?"

Simon glanced at the small building nearby and pulled a face. He'd heard horror stories about that place. Chipped mugs, watery tea and wildlife floating in every beverage.

"No thanks," he said, "I don't fancy my morning _cup o' flies_ today."

"Go to Latte Land then," sighed Kim, "there's a short cut through that alley. It brings you out just a few shops away." she saw Simon looking a bit reluctant. "Look, my appointment is in ten minutes time. By the time you're there and you've got your coffee and come back I'll be all ready to go."

Simon sighed. A black coffee sounded like a good idea, considering the buzz saw in his head, and anything that meant he didn't have to watch Kim being clamped and pierced seemed like the ideal way to spend the morning.

"Alright," he said, "Good luck, Kim – hope your… _bits…_ don't hurt too much," he backed away, not even bearing to think about it.

He quickly made his way through the dingy alleyway that Kim had pointed out and emerged from the other end a surprisingly close proximity to Latte Land.

"Huh, never knew that alleyway was there," he commented.

As he walked along with his hands in his pockets to protect them from the cold he found himself drawn to the leather shop again. It was as though he hadn't even made a conscious decision to stop there, his feet just came to a halt and he found himself staring at the jacket again. He'd done that so many times now. He was like a kid staring at the same bicycle every day, hoping he was going to get it for his birthday. Well, no one was going to buy Simon a leather jacket for his birthday – or Christmas – were they? In fact, everyone had mocked his desire to try wearing one.

Something twitched inside of him. Something pushed him to finally walk through the doorway and to make that desire a reality. His Christmas bonus was burning a hole in his pocket. What did it matter if Kim or Gene or anyone else took the piss out of him? He was doing this for himself.

It was a revelation to him when he slipped on the jacket and caught his reflection for the first time. It was like wearing a costume, trying out a character, taking on a new persona. And it was a darned sight more fetching than the jumper, he had to say. He felt different. He couldn't explain it. All he knew was, he was getting that jacket.

Within moments his Christmas bonus was gone, the price tag removed and he strutted out of the shop feeling like a whole new person. He caught his reflection in every shop window he passed. It seemed incredibly vain but he couldn't get over it, the difference it made. He would have to do something about that overgrown hair now though, he decided. Those overgrown waves - it didn't go with the whole leather jacket look. It made him look like bloody Craig McLachlan. He thought about making an appointment to get that seen to. Maybe he'd try a different style this time. Perhaps something shorter. Did he still have that photo he found of Sam Tyler?

Before he knew it he was back at the tattoo and piercing studio. In his excitement about the leather jacket he had completely forgotten about the idea of getting a coffee. All he could think about was showing off his new look to Kim and boasting that she – and everyone else – had been _so_ wrong – that it suited him down to the ground.

As he reached the door he could see her through it, talking to a man with plenty of ink on his skin and tunnels through his ears. Despite his reluctance to set foot in such a place, Simon opened the door and stepped on through to show Kim his purchase, but as the door closed behind him the sight before him shifted and changed.

Where Kim had stood a split second earlier talking to her piercer she now stood beside a man leaning over a tattooist's chair, his back to Simon and his shirt off; the outline of a stencil over his shoulder and the top of his arm. His chin seemed to be resting atop his arms on the back of the chair, although Simon couldn't tell for sure from the angle he was at. His dark hair seemed to reflect the bright lights above with its shine and his thin build seemed so familiar.

Kim, however, looked as unfamiliar as he could imagine. With long, dark hair in place of her short, bleached crop and a face that had aged by a decade, perhaps a little less, she wore dark make-up and more feminine clothes than he was used to seeing. She was laughing and talking to the man in front of her but Simon couldn't hear what she was saying. Feeling as though he was in some kind of dream he took a step forward. The air seemed thick and heavy, as though he could barely walk through it. It was a little like walking under water.

The closer he came to Kim, the more he could hear of her.

"_You could have chosen something more original!"_ she was saying, giving the man a playful shove.

The man seemed to answer but his voice was unclear. Simon moved forward and watched, shaking, as Kim held a tattooing needle in her hand and started it whirring in the air to make the man before her jump out of his skin. He watched as they both started laughing – it felt almost as though he was watching them in slow motion. Kim's laughter grew harder until she laid her palm across her chest, barely able to breathe and cried, "_Robin, you're so easy!"_

With open mouth and trembling limbs Simon moved swiftly around the side of them to see for himself as Robin's head moved around just a little and he flicked his fringe to one side. There was a look in his eyes, a cross between terror and excitement as he tried to calm down and await the real arrival of the needle against his flesh.

"_Get on with it, Kim,"_ the sound of his voice sent Simon reeling, his hands clasped to his mouth as his legs gave way from under him. He sank to his knees as he watched Kim lower the needle against his skin, the whirring of the machine filling the hazy dreamy atmosphere with white noise that drowned out any conversation that threatened to occur. He watched Robin's expression change a little as he grimaced at the feeling of the needle against his flesh at first before relaxing visibly and watching Kim at work. His lips were moving but Simon couldn't make out a word over the sound of the needle until Kim paused to wipe away some of the excess ink and the end of Robin's sentence could be heard.

"_...lost that bet, didn't you?"  
><em>

"_OK. OK, I take it back,"_ Kim was behaving as though she'd known Robin for a lifetime, "_you did have the guts. You're not a weedy dog lover with the pain threshold of a turnip."_

"_Turnip?"_ That laugh… Oh, Simon had missed that laugh; the giggles Robin gave as he turned a little to face Kim, _"I don't remember you putting it in those terms! If you had there'd have been no pizza for you last week, seriously!"_

"_Shut up and say still,"_ Kim teased_, "or I'll tattoo Evan's beard on here as well."_

"_I thought you'd had enough of those tattoos to last you a lifetime!"_

"_Yeah… and then all the customers came in the following week for new tattoos to cover them up!"_

The sight of Robin laughing again brought tears to Simon's eyes. He stared in silence as Kim lowered the needle onto his skin again and began to etch more outlines onto it. He watched his face, his expression hovering between the pain of the needle and the empowering feeling of the ink on his flesh for an eternity. He longed to reach out and touch him, to tell him he was there, he was watching him, he could see him, but a pair of legs blocked his field of vision.

"Simon?"

Simon blinked. His vision began to clear. The legs were still in his way and as his gave travelled up them he found Kim standing there, short blonde hair back in place and a look of abject confusion across her face.

"Kim?" he gasped. He tried to look beyond her to the spot he'd seen an older, different Kim just a few seconds before but the man with the tunnels in his ears was back, settling a teenager into a chair and aiming a long needle in the direction of her eyebrow. "_Shit,"_ he breathed.

"Simon?" Kim tried again, "what the hell's wrong with you?" she knelt beside him, "Jesus, you're as white as a sheet."

Simon stared at her. He reached out and poked her to make sure she was real. Kim took exception to the poking and slapped his hand away. "Oi, watch my piercings," she frowned.

"You were there," Simon breathed.

"I've been in here for twenty minutes," she said, "you know that."

Simon swallowed.

"You were different, Kim," he whispered.

Kim stared at him.

"You're shaking," she said quietly, "someone didn't try to pierce you unexpectedly, did they?"

Simon barely heard.

"Robin," he whispered.

"What are you talking about?" Kim started to feel anxious, "Simon… what's happened."

For the first time Simon looked her in the eye. It felt as though he was coming out of a dream. He stared at her, his mouth open just a little but he didn't know what to say. Couldn't think of a single damn word. Eventually he swallowed, shook his head a little and whispered,

"Nothing, Kim, I must have been dreaming."

Kim stared at Simon for a few moments, wishing that she could understand what had just happened. When she finally gave up she helped him to his feet instead, dusted him off a little and put her arm around his back to herd him slowly to the door.

"Come on, Simon, let's get you home," she said, "too many units and not enough sleep this week, that's your problem."

But Simon shook his head slowly. It had been real, at least as real as the moment he saw Robin beside him in the car for just that split second. What the hell was happening to him? These moments were coming again and again and he couldn't seem to escape them – more than that, he wasn't sure he wanted to.

He felt himself slip into a world of his own as he walked silently with Kim. He longed for some answers and some clarity to the events that were happening but he wasn't sure he was ever going to find it. Not for the first time he longed to be back home, curled up on the couch with Robin, a pizza and something good on TV, in his own safe little life.

"Simon?"

Kim's voice burst through his thoughts. He turned to her. She was looking at him curiously.

"Hmm?" he said quietly.

There was a pause like she didn't know how to say what was on her mind. Then she drew in a deep breath, looked him in the eye and asked the burning question that she had on her mind.

"What the fucking hell do you think you're wearing?"


	95. Chapter 54, 1995: Sospirando

_**A/N: One chapter tonight… Probably best not to read while eating your dinner!**_

**Chapter Fifty Four**

"Here," Alex couldn't have been less happy to head out at such an early hour to round up ingredients for Gene, but he was already starting early on what he had called '_The poofy table decorating phase of the day'_ and claimed he couldn't go himself lest he would disturb his immense concentration.

Gene stood back to admire his handiwork. The table had been prepared to the best standard that the Gene Genie could possibly manage. He couldn't find a table cloth so he'd used Christmas wrapping paper to coat the surface. He conceded that using sellotape to attach it might have been a mistake. He hoped Alex wouldn't be too angry when they came to remove it and half of the table's surface came away with it.

He wasn't sure his guests would approve of the 'spit and polish' method he'd used for shining the glasses. He'd used maybe a little too much spit and ended up with a wet patch on the floor. He also wasn't sure what order the cutlery was supposed to go in so he had taken the cutlery drawer out of the kitchen and dumped it in the middle of the table for everyone to help themselves.

He didn't approve of girly napkins so kitchen roll had been issued which he had folded into paper boats. He'd been trying to do something more artistic but his mind had wandered. He'd also tried to sail one in the sink but had forgotten their highly absorbent quality and that had been doomed to failure.

"You took yer bloody time, Bols, what were you doing, scavenging for yer own?"

"Have you any idea what the shops are like this close to Christmas?" Alex frowned. Her job had been made all the more difficult by Gene's vague list, the Christmas crowds and rabid parents tearing each other to shreds to get the last Buzz Lightyear toy. Which, she had to note with disapproval, Gene had also requested for Christmas.

Gene took the bag of ingredients and opened it up. He stared. He looked at Alex.

"What the bloody hell's this?"

"Your clams," frowned Alex.

Gene blinked.

"Clams?"

Alex scowled.

"You're the one who's been going on about them all week"

"These aren't clams."

"Well what _are_ they then?" Alex thought Gene had gone crazy.

He stared on.

"Why would I want to cook a food I'd need to bloody force me way into?"

"Gene, these are clams," cried Alex.

"Clams are…" Gene trailed off.

"W-what did you think they were?"

Gene swallowed.

"Thought they were a kind of mushroom," he mumbled.

"A mu-" Alex sighed and shook her head, "What the hell made you think that?"

"Me brain did!" Gene put his hand to his head. It was true he wasn't the world's greatest authority on food, but sometimes he had some bizarre memory lapses. He presumed they came in place of forgetting about the nature of his world. So much mental energy went on keeping focused that sometimes he forgot the most stupid of things, but this just about took the biscuit.

In fact, biscuits would have been preferable to clams.

"Well what are you going to do?" asked Alex.

Gene stared at the clams. They sat there, all smug and cosy in their shells. His mind superimposed smirks upon their shells. _Little buggers._

"Well I can't give 'em a grilling and hope they break down under questioning," he said, "I could try hitting them against the filing cabinet I suppose." He shook his head. "I'm gonna have to rethink this, Bolly."

He didn't like the idea of trying to cook the clams. He could picture himself up for murder from the worst case of food poisoning in the history of the world. Besides, he couldn't work out how to get into the damn things. Knock politely? Was there a secret password to get them to open up?

"Did you get me other ingredients?" Gene asked.

"I couldn't get any dolphin-nosed potatoes," Alex scowled a little, "the closest I could find was dolphin-friendly tuna and normal potatoes.

"That'll do," Gene mumbled.

~xXx~

Simon felt nervous as he reached out to ring the buzzer. At the last second he hung back and glanced at Kim.

"Why did I set this up?" he whined.

"You're the one who'd been making us do this!" cried Kim, "you can't back out now."

"I'm going to be fidgeting around all evening," mumbled Simon , scratching at his neck.

"Why did you get your hair cut anyway?" Kim asked, "the curls were fine."

"Needed a new look," Simon muttered, scratching at his newly cropped hair. It was taking some getting used to. After his strange moment in the tattoo studio he'd spent the afternoon trying to take his mind off it. A new haircut to add to his new look was one part of that.

"Come on, ring the bell," said Kim, "before my hands freeze and I drop the wine."

Simon glanced at the bottle.

"Aren't we supposed to wrap it in brown paper or something?"

"No, that's winos," said Kim.

"Oh." Simon rang the buzzer and a moment later Alex let them in. They began to climb the staircase nervously, increasingly aware of an unpleasant smell as they did so. They exchanged a glance.

"Stomach pump on standby," Kim commented.

Gene opened the door. He caught sight of Simon and did a double take. The double take turned into a triple take. He seemed to take a step back.

"Bloody hell, Shoebury," he cried, "a cow died for that!"

Simon scowled.

"That's not the reaction I was looking for," he pouted.

"If I wanted to invite Sam Tyler for dinner I'd hand in me notice and go to the bloody pub!" Gene cried.

Simon folded his arms. This wasn't going the way he'd planned.

"Let's just try to keep this evening civilised, shall we?" he mumbled and marched in.

Kim glanced at Gene and handed him the bottle.

"That smells…" she paused, "interesting."

"Ahh… yeah, about dinner," Gene cleared his throat, "change of plan."

Simon hesitated.

"You mean you've decided to get a takeaway?" he asked hopefully.

"The clams didn't work out," Gene told him, "so now it's tuna and potatoes with whatever-I-can-find-in-the-cupboard sauce."

Simon and Kim exchanged a look.

"Erm," Kim began, "OK."

"Sit," Gene barked.

Like a couple of obedient dogs Simon and Kim shuffled to the table, sat down and exchanged a look.

"Nice… boats," Kim commented.

"Yeah, word to the wise, don't start sailing them, you'll be in for a Titanic scenario," Gene told them.

"Uh… OK," said Simon.

A very reluctant and slightly pale Alex entered the room and sat down stiffly at the table.

"Ma'am, are you alright?" asked Kim, "you look ill."

Alex gulped.

"I've just seen the first course," she said quietly.

A look of horror passed between Kim and Simon. If they survived the night it would be nothing short of a miracle.

~xXx~

It was time for the starter; _Paté and other poncy crap._

"Well, this looks…" Simon gulped. He couldn't think of an end to that sentence, "Err… Kim? Help me out here."

"Uh…" Kim stared at the tray before them, "It looks _really… interesting" _she said.

The paté hadn't exactly gone to plan. Gene wasn't sure what it _was_ for a start. Some research led him to mash up some tuna with a potato masher and smear it onto some digestive biscuits. They were supposed to be crackers but he'd forgotten to add them to his list.

Kim tactfully took the smallest bite imaginable, put on a false smile and said,

"Mmmm… delicious."

Simon hesitated.

"I'm on a diet," he said, "I think I'll… wait for the main course."

"Eat yer bloody fishy biscuits," Gene barked.

The fishy digestives didn't go down well. Quite literally, as it happened. All faces at the table took on a green hue. It also wasn't the ideal way to line their stomachs for the tuna and potatoes with whatever-I-can-find-in-the-cupboard sauce. It seemed that what Gene could find in the cupboard was tomato puree, beef stock cubes, mustard and cheese, plus an awful lot of different herbs.

"I think," Alex began quietly as her face contorted into a similar level of pain they had seen when Keats's bullet sank into her head, "that I have to go out urgently."

"Me too," said Simon.

"And me," said Kim.

Gene shovelled forkful after forkful of the strange mixture into his mouth. He either had a cast-iron stomach or no taste buds.

"Yer all bloody ungrateful, been slaving over a hot oven all day," he mumbled.

Alex glanced at Simon and Kim.

"He's been staring at the ingredients all day and cooking for half an hour," she corrected.

"Eat yer bloody tuna and dolphin-nose potatoes," Gene mumbled through a full mouth.

"He means d_auphinoise_," Alex whispered.

"I know what I bloody mean," snapped Gene, "I spent hours cutting them into the shape of dolphins and you're all going to eat them, like it or not."

It took a lot of time, strength and alcohol for the others to force down an adequate amount of the food disaster to get Gene off their backs. By the time dessert arrived there were three very green faces around the table and most of the wine had disappeared.

"'Ere," said Gene, throwing the desert in front of them.

A bowl of goop sat in front of each of them.

"What's that?" asked Kim.

"Mee-rangs," said Gene.

"Meringues?" asked Kim.

Simon stared at him, his mouth aghast.

"Gene, you're supposed to whisk them and cook them!" he cried.

"Well I couldn't find the bloody whisk," Gene told him crossly.

Kim retched. She laid down her paper boat, got to her feet and said,

"Well this was… _lovely_, Guv, but I've got to get home and soak my piercings."

"Yes, and I've got to soak my… leather jacket," Simon said nervously, getting up from the table.

"Hang on, you haven't scored me out of ten yet," Gene frowned.

"We have to do that in secret," said Simon.

"Thank god for that," mumbled Alex

"I'll collect your scores tomorrow night," he said. He paused and flinched as the overwhelming array of fishy food repeated on him and shook his head slightly, "if any of us are still alive."

He made a quick dash for the door with Kim close behind, leaving an annoyed Gene and a green tinted Alex behind.

"Barbarians," mumbled Gene, "some people don't know quality cuisine when they see it."

Alex glared at him as she clutched her stomach.

"Yes," she agreed, "I'm looking at one of them right now."

~xXx~

"Day two," Simon groaned as he stared at the ceiling. As far as mistakes went, this one was ranking pretty highly. It was Kim's turn to host that night. Simon didn't remember seeing her ever use the oven before. To Kim, meals were divided into three groups: Sandwiches, Take-aways and _getting-other-people-to-cook-for-you_. He got up and dressed before walking slowly to the kitchen where he found Kim looking a little green at the kitchen table.

"Morning," he said.

Kim glanced up, a bottle of milk of magnesia in front of her.

"What the hell did Gene do?" she mumbled, "Or, more to the point, what did we do to Gene to deserve that?"

"I don't know," Simon sat down feeling like hell.

Kim gave him a funny look.

"You don't have to wear the leather jacket to the breakfast table you know," she told him.

Simon blushed.

"It's a cold morning," he shrugged.

"Please tell me The Jacket is not The New Jumper?" Kim sighed.

Simon ignored her. So far no one had offered him a single compliment on his new look. '_Who's that prat in the leather jacket?'_ maybe, but no compliments. He briefly looked at a box of cornflakes and decided he couldn't face them.

"So are you all ready for your evening then?" he asked.

"Define 'ready'," mumbled Kim.

"Are you certain you're not going to give anyone food poisoning?" asked Simon, "or make a batch of _whatever-I-can-find-in-the-cupboard_ sauce?"

"Certain on both counts," said Kim.

"Just make sure you cook the chicken for long enough," Simon advised, receiving a scowl for his efforts.

"Just because I prefer _not_ to cook doesn't mean I can't," she told him crossly.

"Alright! Alright!" Simon backed away slightly, "keep your hair on!"

"Shame you didn't take your own advice," Kim snickered.

Simon scowled and got to his feet.

"Fine, I'll leave you to it," he said, "but remember, there's all to play for."

"There's _fuck _all to play for," mumbled Kim, "A prize would have been nice."

~xXx~

Alex spent an extraordinary amount of time in the bathroom that morning before emerging with a pale face.

"You alright, Bolly?" frowned Gene.

"Nothing a new digestive system won't fix," Alex mumbled, glaring at Gene, "what the hell was in that whatever-I-can-find-in-the-cupboard sauce?"

"Whatever I could find in the cupboard," frowned Gene, "clue's in the question."

Alex crawled back into bed.

"How many more nights of this are there to go?" she whimpered.

"More than I can stomach," said Gene.

~xXx~

The black and charred mess sat in the middle of the table.

"I was worried about undercooking the chicken," Kim explained.

Alex glanced at her.

"So you cooked it for twelve hours?" she asked incredulously.

Kim gave a nervous laugh.

"At least you can be sure it's free from salmonella now," she said apologetically.

"It's free from being edible an' all," Gene told her, rolling his eyes.

Her starter hadn't exactly been a huge success either. How was she to know that cabbage soup made Alex projectile vomit with horror? Now the main course wasn't going much better. The lump of charcoal that had once been a chicken stared at them, smouldering quietly.

"At least if we run out of pencils we can write with lumps of this instead," Simon commented.

As it turned out, his comment brought the turning point of the evening as Kim attempted to gain points by using lumps of chicken charcoal to draw caricatures of the others on their napkins. This was slightly more successful than the food part of the evening, except that Gene claimed his looked more like Peter Smith from the Big Breakfast news.

By the time dessert came around everyone was too busy drawing things with the lumps of chicken to try it so a whole Angel Delight went to waste.

"That took me five whole minutes to mix up!" she complained.

Never the less, by the end of the evening she was at least quietly confident that she had to have done better than Gene. She hadn't given anyone food poisoning, none of her food included fish and she'd received at least one commission for napkin artwork.

~xXx~

"And so we have to do it all over again tonight," groaned Alex as she awoke the following morning from nightmares about cabbage soup chasing her through CID.

"At least we're halfway there," Gene told her.

Alex sighed. Halfway there was still not close enough to the end of the ordeal. Tonight was Simon's night and then the next day she was supposed to be cooking but hadn't even thought of anything to cook. She was exhausted, positively drained. It was taking her a long time to physically get her strength back from the combination of the shooting and the car crash, coupled up with the fact that starting back at work had drained her terribly.

All she wanted to cook was baked beans on toast.

She didn't think Simon was going to accept that, however.

She hadn't 'submitted her menu' yet. She had, however, threatened to submit it up Simon's backside when he pestered her about it too much. She supposed she had been living with Gene too long and was slowly turning into him.

~xXx~

Simon stood staring at the ingredients.

At some point, a very long time ago, this had all seemed like a very good idea.

That day seemed like a very long time ago now.

"Chicken Chasseur," he studied the recipe, "Chicken, check. Mushrooms, check. White wine…" he glanced around at the bottle, hesitated, then opened it. "Don't mind if I do."

He swigged from the bottle of white. He supposed it wasn't good practice to do so from a bottle you were going to be adding to your meal but Kim was out so no one would be any this wiser and his own need was greater. His nerves were getting the better of him. There was much onus on his night. He'd made such a fuss about it that if his own meal failed then he was never going to live it down.

He hadn't tried wine before. The scotch, he'd become acquainted with. Lager, he was getting better at drinking without pulling a face. But wine?

"Urgh, like vinegar!" he muttered, pulling a face. Still, needs must, as they say. He took another long swig and gasped to get his breath back before setting the bottle down on the cabinet. "stock… check. Onion… check. More wine…" He took out a glass this time and poured it out. His body was still getting used to the alcohol and it didn't take long for his first few gulps to start taking effect giving his limbs a warm and pleasant tingling sensation as he foolishly brandished a knife. "Oooh, onion cutting time," he said. He lined up two onions on the chopping board and warned them, "you can't make me cry. You can't, because I am a man. A big, strong man, and I don't cry at onions."

He attacked them with the knife and chopped them roughly before he realised he'd left their skins on. He laughed at them for being so foolish, threw them in the bin, reached for anther onion and began to peel away the skin.

"Now let's try again," he mumbled, "oooh, look! Naked onions! Well well, fancy seeing you in a state of undress! You naughty little onions."

His chopping skills were deteriorating as more of the wine ended up down his throat than would end up in the food. The more he drank, the less he minded the taste. His tongue started to feel as numb as the rest of him.

"Well, now," he told the onions as he threw their chunky pieces in the frying pan, "Robin was always the cooking one. He was always the expert and I…" he laughed as he threw the mushrooms in alongside the onion, "I used to stand back and leave him to it, cos I'll tell you a secret." He leaned closer to the frying foods and told them. "Robin is the best fucking cook in Fenchurch."

He stood up again and examined the chicken breasts.

"Now, don't take this pershonally," he began to slur at them, "but I don't usually go for breasts," he started laughing slightly maniacally, "but I'll make an exception for you, my dears!" He tried to focus on the recipe, "now…. Roll the chicken in flowers." He frowned. He didn't have any of those. Or was that flour? Never mind, he'd forego that part. He threw them in the pan instead and told them to ignore the naked onions.

"They're exhibionishhhts!" he told the chicken.

He started doing a little dance around the kitchen to the tune of the Chicken Tonight adverts and sang raucously until a strange smell began to strike up. He glanced at the pan where smoke was starting to rise.

"Shit! My breasts are burning!" he cried, then burst into laughter, "That sounds like a channel five documentary!" he said.

Flipping the chicken over and turning down the hob a little he decided that his brave act called for more wine so he downed some more. He realised there wasn't a lot left in the bottle now. In fact, there was hardly a trickle. He hiccupped and reached for another bottle. This one was supposed to go on the table for his guests, but screw them - The meal needed it more than they did. So he opened the bottle, poured it liberally into the pan and then more down his throat.

"Now that's what I call cooking," he cried triumphantly, "Robin, eat your heart out!"

With that his eyes closed, his body slumped down and he fell into a deep slumber on the kitchen floor.

X

That's where the others found him as they all arrived together from work to await the third night of Come Dine with CID. The charred chicken in the pan, the unconscious Simon and the rest of the food abandoned.

Gene stared down at him, his stomach empty.

"I suppose we could eat _him,"_ he suggested.

Alex nodded thoughtfully. It didn't seem like too bad an idea.

"That would get me out of cooking tomorrow night," she said.

A strange mumble and a hiccup came from somewhere in the heap of limbs that Simon had become on the floor.

Gene sighed.

"Let's get him to bed before he ferments on the kitchen floor," he said, _"Oi,_ Shoebury. Get yer pickled arse to bed." He slowly hauled Simon onto his feet and dragged him, mumbling and muttering, all the way to his room.

Kim and Alex exchanged a glance.

"I'm bloody starving, Ma'am," Kim complained.

"We could still try eating him?" Alex suggested.

Kim hesitated.

"Take away?" she suggested instead.

Alex nodded.

"Anything that's not been cooked by a member of CID sounds like a good option to me," she said.

~xXx~

"Annnnnd I even got the bloody leather jacket and you're still being mean to _meeee,"_ Simon mumbled as Gene unloaded him roughly onto the bed.

"Well maybe if you concentrated on not doing dares instead of buying dead cows in your size then I might have something to smile about for once," he mumbled as he pulled Simon's legs up onto the bed.

Simon groaned and kept his eyes closed.

"Things are spinning," he mumbled.

"They'll be doing more than that if you chuck over my shoes," Gene warned, backing away a bit.

"Love you, y'know," Simon's voice rose an octave as he spoke.

"I hope you love getting some sense punched into you if you don't shut up," said Gene.

"Is the chicken done yet?" Simon muttered into the pillow.

"Yes, Simon, the chicken's '_done',"_ sighed Gene. It was almost to the same standard as Kim's the day before, "now bloody sleep this off. We'll be 'aving words on the morning about you and yer bloody twenty first century television programmes."

"Night, dad," muttered Simon.

"Go to sleep and stop flapping your lips, otherwise you'll be eating those bed sheets as yer main course tomorrow night," Gene warned and left the room.

He arrived back in the lounge to find Kim calling for a take-away.

"_Half an hour? Brilliant. Thank you!"_

Gene sank onto the couch beside Alex.

"Next time Shoebury comes pitching cookery shows at me remind me to run a mile," he said, "Ready Steady Twat."

Alex leaned back and closed her eyes.

"And tomorrow I've still got to go through this," she moaned.

"Gauntlet's been thrown now, Bols," said Gene, "how will you ever match up to tonight's quality feast?"

"I think you stand a good chance of winning," said Kim.

"I doubt it," sighed Alex.

"Face it, Bolly, short of carking it before making the mean you can't do any worse than the rest of us."

Alex sighed.

"I very well might 'cark it' when Simon finds out what I'm cooking," she said.

~xXx~

"Ta-da!" Alex lifted the lid from her surprise feast as she placed it on the table.

"Beans?" Simon asked incredulously.

"_On toast,"_ Alex said indignantly, "I'm not just going to serve up a bowl of beans on their own, am I?"

"You can't serve that!" cried Simon, flinching a little as his raised voice jarred his head. It was still a little tender from the day before and his memory of the whole thing was fairly hazy. He remembered sexy onions and breasts, and something about being tucked up in bed, as well as consuming a large amount of what he thought was vinegar. He'd woken up in the morning to find his flat smelt of burnt stuff, that there were three empty pizza boxes on the kitchen table and that he had a tongue that resembled a sandpit.

Alex's menu had not served to improve his mood.

Kim and Gene, on the other hand, were delighted with the food and tucked in hungrily.

"Oh, Ma'am , this is quality!" cried Kim.

"Now you're talking," Gene mumbled, his mouth already full.

Simon stared at Alex.

"_Beans?"_

"Well look at the rest of the meals!" Alex protested, "at what point this week has anyone tucked in like this? I didn't burn it, I didn't poison anyone and I didn't make any whatever-I-can-find-in-the-cupboard sauce."

"Definitely the best meal I've had all week," Kim told her, shovelling the beans in her mouth.

"Too true," added Gene, doing the same.

Alex raised her eyebrow at Simon, gave him a smug smirk and took a mouthful of her easy, quality food.

Simon pouted. He hated to admit that the beans on toast smelt really nice, or that it was the only meal of the week he felt like eating. He half-heartedly picked at it for a few moments until he finally gave in and began shovelling it down his throat.

It was with a landslide that Alex won _Come Dine With CID._ Full marks from Kim and Gene, and despite Simon only giving her a 3 for _lack of effort_ she still won with a clear 12 point lead.

"There's only one way this would have been better," Gene told her as he finished the last bit on his pate.

Alex turned to him.

"Oh yeah?" she asked, "and what would that have been?"

Gene burped.

"If we'd 'ad 'oops instead of beans," he told her.

_**~xXx~**_

_**The author can take no responsibility for any aversions you may develop to clams, tuna, potatoes or watching Come Dine With Me as a result of reading this chapter!**_

_**Two chapters tomorrow!**_


	96. Chapter 55, 1995: Bruscamente

_**A/N: So, are we feeling festive? Well I bloody am! I have convinced myself we are in December right now! And to celebrate this fake festive cheer I am posting up three chapters. Sorry about that! Here's the first of them! **_

**Chapter Fifty Five**

Simon pulled the jumper on and stared out the window.

"Christmas Eve," he whispered as he watched people walking past outside of the window. It didn't feel like Christmas. That was partly of his own doing. He could have made the effort, could have tried to get into the Christmas spirit but it had been too painful to even think about it without Robin.

Come Dine With Me had given him a distraction and now that was over the festive season was suddenly upon him. The previous night, Alex winning the challenge with baked beans on toast had made a mockery of his whole scheme. That would never have happened in the programme! He couldn't understand how it had all gone so wrong. Maybe he should have hired some sarcastic idiot to do a running commentary on all four nights? Would that have made it more authentic?

That wasn't the only disappointment he'd had of late either.

He stared at his leather jacket hanging up on the wardrobe door. After spending days staring at it in the window of the leather shop and trying to get up the courage to just go and buy it he'd been so thrilled with his new look – even more so after the haircut – but the response had been piss-poor.

"_If I wanted to invite Sam Tyler for dinner I'd hand in me notice and go to the bloody pub!" - _Gene's comment had been a slap in the face. Simon hadn't even realised until then quite how much he'd been doing that for Gene's sake. Hearing about the friendship they'd had and reading all about Sam in those files had made him feel more and more as though emulating him was the way to get closer to Gene. He felt a strange need to impress him in a way that stayed quite separate to the crush he was forever denying. He couldn't explain it. He had some kind of inbuilt need to prove himself and to gain Gene's approval.

He didn't even like the haircut. Not now. Looking in the mirror, he saw it now as another failed attempt to emulate some man he'd never even met, and probably never would considering he was in a pub forever more.

He gave a deep sigh and left the confines of his bedroom to find Kim laying across the sofa with the TV guide in one hand, a notebook in the other and some festive cartoon playing on the screen.

"What the hell are you watching?" he asked.

Kim glanced up, a little shocked by his sudden entrance.

"Sorry, I didn't hear you come in," she said quietly,

"What's this?" he asked again.

Kim waved her hand dismissively.

"Just the telly," she said.

Simon sat beside her and pulled the TV guide from her hand. Things had been ringed and jotted down in her notebook.

"What the hell are you doing?" he asked.

Kim gave a deep sigh. She didn't think he was going to understands this somehow.

"It's my Christmas eve tradition," she said quietly, "watching all the festive crap I can find in the schedules."

Simon looked at the list of programmes she'd made in her notebook which included times and channels.

"You've been up watching crappy cartoons since six this morning?" he started to laugh, but Kim looked a little hurt.

"Don't, Simon," She said, "this is all I have left from home."

"What do you mean?"

Kim swallowed as she felt herself becoming a little emotional.

"I used to do this every year since I was a kid," she said, "you're being _Scrooge of Fenchurch_, we haven't got a tree or any decorations, you wouldn't even let me _look_ at a turkey and the only kind of crackers we'll be seeing around here tomorrow are ones you eat with cheese." She stared at the TV where Santa was whacking someone over the head with his sleigh, "This is my little taste of home. And I don't care if it's silly or cheesy. Let me just do this."

Simon felt a little guilty. He knew he was being a grump about Christmas and that wasn't fair on Kim. They both had issues with their first Christmas away from home. But they both needed to deal with it in their own ways.

"Sorry, Kim," he said quietly, "do what you need to do. Enjoy your TV shows." He got to his feet and walked to the kitchen to get some breakfast. "Hey, at least you're not spending the day at work."

"You volunteered," Kim pointed out.

"Well I thought Gene and Alex deserved the day together," Simon told her, "sounds like every other year they get hauled into work. After what they've been through lately they deserve to enjoy their Christmas Eve."

"Let's hope all the druggies, murderers and crooks take Christmas off as well so that none of us will have to go on tomorrow," said Kim.

Simon pottered about the kitchen, looking in cupboards and considering various options but he didn't really feel like breakfast when it came down to it. Perhaps a black coffee would do in its place, he thought. He decided to head to Latte Land on the way.

"I'll see you this evening, Kim." He said, stopping in his bedroom to get his jacket on the way.

"Oh Simon, no, not the jacket _and_ the jumper together," Kim cringed.

"It's cold," Simon protested.

"But _together?"_

Simon glared at her.

"It's _bloody_ cold," he said and left before his image could take another battering.

~xXx~

Simon felt as though the shop was goading him; tainting him. There was a new leather jacket in the window now, replacing the one he'd purchased days before. The male mannequin had been taken away and replaced with a very busty female one on which had been placed a ladies' white leather jacket. It was like a great bit two-fingered salute to him.

"Fucking bastards," he mumbled, "they did that on purpose."

"_Who did? The leather fairies?"_

Simon froze for a split second then spun around but there was no one behind him. It was the same voice. The same one as last time. He knew that much. He tried looking in various directions, down the roads, in the shop, the windows above – but there was no one nearby.

"Hello?" he called out. His voice shook a little. The voice had spooked him. "Who's there?"

There were a couple of teenage girls on the other side of the road who were staring at him and pointing but they'd not spoken. He supposed he was making a prat out of himself now and waited for the shouted insults to come but the girls simply gave him a shy wave and ran away giggling. Simon frowned and scratched his head. That wasn't the kind of reaction he was used to.

"Something bloody strange going on around here," he muttered, pulling his jacket around him and rushing on to Latte Land. He couldn't wait to get a hot drink and retreat to the nice safe station, where he could block out strange voices and giggly teens.

~xXx~

By the time he arrived at Fenchurch East he was in a better frame of mind. His morning had been buoyed by the dubious honour of being allowed into Latte Lands's exclusive _Coffee appreciation club_ for regulars. He'd rarely been a 'regular' anywhere before. He considered it an honour. Maybe Gene would even be more impressed with this?

He was aware that a couple of people he didn't know gave him a nod or a wave as he walked through the station. Maybe the jacket had more of an impact than he realised? It was the first time he'd worn it to work. Even Bammo seemed impressed and caused Simon to keel over in shock by inviting him for a game of darts.

He made his way to his own office. Held rarely been in there recently. Between spending so long helping Gene work out how to get Alex back and the paperwork punishment he'd faced the week before he had been in CID far more than in the Hi-Tech Crimes office.

There was no sign of Vickery. The poor chap had been given Christmas off, although Simon wasn't sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing, Vickery might have wanted to be there for the same reasons that Simon had volunteered. It was true that he wanted Gene and Alex to get a well-deserved break but he didn't feel like sitting at home, watching _it's a Wonderful Life_ and counting down the hours until Christmas was over and life returned to normal.

"Morning, Sir!" Lindsay's voice was as bright as her hair and her eyes sparkled with festive cheer. On her head she wore a small pair of antlers which made Simon smile. He'd rarely met anyone so full of life – even back when he was alive.

"Morning, Lindsay," he said, "interesting headgear."

"Oh," she looked around, a little embarrassed, "let me know if it's too much. I'll take them off."

"No, it's fine," Simon smiled.

"You should see what I wear at easter," Lindsay joked with a smile. She noticed for the first time Simon's leather jacket and her expression changed to one of surprise and approval. "I like the jacket, sir."

"Oh," Simon felt a little embarrassed suddenly. It was the first time someone had given him a straight-up compliment about it and it wasn't exactly the person he'd been seeking it from. But it was still a confidence booster, and a well needed one at that. "Yes, well, I felt like a change," he said, fully aware that all his newfound credibility would go out of the window when he removed the jacket to reveal the jumper lurking underneath.

"And your hair," Lindsay continued, "it looks good. Suits you."

"_Oh?"_ Someone liked the hair? This was a turn up for the books, "Thanks," involuntarily he found his hand rising to his head. The one thing that he really wasn't sure about was the shortness of the crop. He missed being able to play with his hair when he was nervous. It was his worst habit.

"Good new look for you," Lindsay told him. She turned back to the filing cabinet where she was putting some files she'd just finished with, pulled down her short skirt as it rose up a little and adjusted her antlers.

Simon decided the heat of the room was too much to fight against and he would have to take his jacket off.

_This is it,_ he thought, _this is the moment my credibility goes back down to zero._

But to his surprise Lindsay said,

"Oh, I _love_ it!"

Simon looked at her in surprise.

"Love what?"

"The Noel Edmonds piss-take jumper for Christmas!" she laughed, "is he doing one of those shitty programmes tomorrow? Oh, I hope not. Every bloody Christmas, Noel Edmonds. It's even worse than the –"

"Queen's speech," Simon smiled as though he knew what was coming.

Lindsay laughed.

"I thought I was the only one who hated that," she said.

"Oh no, you have an ally here," Simon told her.

"That's good to know," said Lindsay. She gave a little smile. "Well, I'd better go and get the copies done of the Miller paperwork. See you later, Sir."

Simon smiled and nodded.

"See you," he said.

He felt a little strange as he watched her disappear out of the doorway. Where had these sudden compliments come from? Was this all down to a jacket and a haircut? He found it a little difficult to comprehend.

Now that Lindsay had gone the office seemed very lonely and quiet. He recalled that strange voice from earlier. It began to make him feel a little spooked again. _Have to break the silence, _he thought._ Need a distraction._

He reached out and switched on the radio. Maybe some music would fill the silence. It was off the station and buzzed with static as the radio started to power up and Simon fiddled with the dial a little until it came upon some music. He'd barely heard three words when he realised that it was _Wham! _crooning festively at him.

"Urgh! Last Christmas!" he cried, hurriedly changing the station and wiping his hand as though to shake off the Wham cooties.

He tried to tune it to another station. He came upon a talk station where someone was trying to sell to the public at large the things about Boxing Day that made it better than Christmas day.

"_The pubs are all open again and the football's back on!"_ he said.

"_Thank you for that,"_ the DJ told the caller, "_we will bear that in mind, I am sure."_

"_And you won't have to see those relatives again for another year."_

"_Yes, thank you…"_

"_OR wear that crappy jumper your gran knitted you."_

"Hey, some of us _like_ crappy jumpers!" Simon protested. He changed the station before the caller could launch into a Noel Edmonds-eque tirade and found some more music to listen to, not festive this time. As _Mike Flowers Pops_ crooned annoyingly out of the radio Simon sat down and stared out of the window. There were so few cars there. Only sad acts like him were there for Christmas Eve. Even the crims were taking the day off.

"Merry bloody Christmas," he mumbled.

As he stared, the radio wandered off the station and Simon gave a sigh. Time to find another station, he decided and began to fiddle with the dial when he suddenly came upon a voice; loud and clear.

"…_I'd usually save this toast for Christmas,"_ it was a woman's voice and it sounded familiar, "_but I feel like it's just as appropriate today."_

Simon frowned. He tilted the radio and stared at the dial as though he could work out what station he was picking up.

"_To absent friends,"_ the voice said.

"_Absent friends,"_ a chime of voices said together.

Simon could hear a clinking of glasses and a voice saying something about how sad they were that one of them was missing before the voices gave out to static which caused him to jump and draw back a little.

He stared at the radio as though it could explain to him the strange broadcast he'd just heard but it just kept on blaring static at him. With shaking hands he put it back on the desk and hurriedly found another station – any station – just to escape the static and the memory of those voices. He found some music, left it on and retreated around the far side of his desk where he peered out the window again. There was a little sleet in the air. Perhaps turning to very light snow. He felt like a kid trapped in school when all he wanted to do was to go out and play in it.

As he stared outside he realised what was playing miserably on the radio. It made his heart sink horrendously. As though things could have been any worse.

_# According to the radio_

_warmer weather's on the way_

_The chances are, we won't be getting snow_

_But even if the sun shines_

_from now to Christmas day_

_as far as i'm concerned, I know..._

_It's gonna be a cold, cold Christmas without you_

_Dreaming of those warm, warm lazy summer days_

_It's gonna be a long and lonely Christmas without you_

_Missing you my darling in oh so many ways… #_

"Oh fucking hell!" Simon thrust his head into his arms folded against the desk. How the hell could things get any more depressing? As though he wasn't already aware enough of his situation.

_# …Yesterday I saw your mum and dad_

_we bought our cards together_

_I've put the presents on the Christmas tree_

_and then I write this letter_

_It's warm, inside, the lockvice burning bright oh darling_

_If only you were here, to make it right_

_It's gonna be a cold, cold Christmas without you_

_Dreaming of us warm, warm lazy summer days_

_It's gonna be a long and lonely Christmas without you_

_Missing you my darling in oh so many ways_

He felt a horrible sadness building up inside of him. He thought about Robin and the presents he was planning to buy him for Christmas. Not much good buying them now and sitting around for fifteen years in the hope he might be able to give them to him eventually. Besides, most of them hadn't even been invented yet.

_# …I didn't bought a wreath or mistletoe_

_You won't be here to kiss me_

_The only constellation that i've got_

_I'll know for sure you miss me_

_It won't be long until you're home again_

_and we can share this magic moments_

_But till then..._

_It's gonna be a cold cold Christmas without you_

_Dreaming of those warm, warm lazy summer days_

_It's gonna be a long and lonely Christmas without you_

_Missing you my darling in oh so many ways… #_

He closed his eyes as he wished those words were true. He wished Robin _would_ be there soon, but he had no idea how long it would be until they were together again – if ever. This was getting bloody depressing.

He decided the jumper was a good choice for the day after all.


	97. Chapter 56, 1995: Dolcissimo

_**A/N: Part 2 of tonight's 3 chapters. Get the tinsel out!**_

**Chapter Fifty Six**

"Hey."

Kim glanced up as Simon retuned a little sheepishly.

She'd been watching Christmas television all day long. She had cartoon Santas dancing in front of her eyes. She was surrounded by empty mugs and packets of junk food and cut a lonely figure.

"Hey," she said, a half-hearted smile on her lips, "how was work?"

"Interesting," said Simon, "well the _work_ wasn't, the work was boring, but…" he sighed as he shrugged off the jacket, "I had a few unexpected reactions to this thing for a start."

"Oh?" Kim frowned.

"Let's just say I'm not as down on my makeover as I was this morning," he said. He reached into the hallway and dragged in a heavy looking bag.

"What's in there?" she frowned.

"Peace offering," said Simon. He pulled out a large bottle of champagne. "sorry for being a scrooge."

The corners of Kim's mouth twitched into a smile.

"That's OK," she said, "I know if you had the choice you wouldn't be spending the festive season with a former ladette."

"And you wouldn't be spending it with some idiot with a jumper fixation," said Simon. He saw her smile properly. "Look, let's get some pizza, open this and spend the evening watching whatever else in on that schedule of yours. Maybe you can get rid of my _bah humbugs."_

"That's a challenge," said Kim.

~xXx~

Of all the years Alex had been in Gene's world they'd rarely managed to spend Christmas together. There would always be a case spoiling the festive season for them. If it wasn't a body turning up then it was a shipment of white powder on their doorstep. They seemed to be fated. But this year it was so far, so good. Alex didn't even want to say that. She didn't want to tempt fate. She had a half-fear that Nick Nailer was standing outside the door, listening through it with a glass against his ear, just waiting for her to say she thought they would actually get to spend Christmas together before causing chaos.

She heard the sound of liquid pouring from a bottle and turned around to see Gene filling glasses with wine. She smiled warmly and pushed her hair behind her ear at one side.

"Kim was right," she said quietly, "I made it home in time for Christmas."

That was a personal victory to Alex. And despite the horrendousness of the culinary torture from the last few nights Alex had not seen any sign of this being the 'worst Christmas ever' yet. In fact, it was shaping up fairly nicely.

Events of late had rather set her usual Christmas preparations to one side and she was terribly behind. They were usually left to her since the ever growing list of _Things Gene Hunt Did Not Do_ included testing strings of poofy fairy lights to see if they worked, getting pine needles up his backside decorating the tree, turning into a girl by curling bits of poncy silver ribbon and stirring fifty seven bloody pans on the oven hob.

The bare tree sat in the corner, waiting to be decorated. She hated that she'd left it so late. Back in 2008 with Molly the tree would have been up on the first of December.

"I'm so behind," she sighed as she untied the string that bound the lid of the decoration box.

Gene tilted his head a little.

"What's that about your behind?" he asked.

Alex gave him a withering look, unfolded the box lid and began to take out the decorations she'd been using for many years.

"Predictable to a fault," she said, then gave him a little smirk. "And as for my behind, you'll have to wait until morning."

"I thought I got to open one present on Christmas Eve?" asked Gene.

"Yes, but you have to save your big one for Christmas Day."

Gene looked down.

"My _big one_ wanted it on Christmas Eve," he complained.

Alex took several strings of tinsel from the box.

"Are you going to help me with these or not?" she asked.

"Do I look like I want to show me face at karaoke with sparkly bits in me hair?" asked Gene, "No, I think not."

"Can we give karaoke a miss tonight?" Alex asked. She sidled up to him and sat by his feet, "I don't think I fancy listening to Bammo mastering the whole Christmas repertoire again." She lifted her glass. "Besides, I've got things to wrap."

"I was hoping for more_ unwrapping _than wrapping," Gene told her.

Alex leaned back against the couch and sipped her wine. She looked around her. Her flat. Her _home._ She gave a sigh.

"This is going to be a hard Christmas for Simon and Kim," she said.

"Every day's a _hard_ day for bloody Shoebury at the moment," Gene mumbled but after taking a mouthful of wine he conceded that he knew what she meant. "I know, Bols," he sighed, "I know it's not easy for therm. At least they've got each other. Probably some parallel universe where they're straight and shagging each other's brains out under the Christmas tree." Gene flinched and cursed himself, "See- you _see?_ You see, he's got me doing it now. Parallel universes. That's bloody Shoebury that is! He's infected me! His sci-fi germs have got in me 'ead!"

Alex couldn't help giving a smile of amusement.

"He's grown on you a lot," she commented.

"I wouldn't go that far."

"And Kim," Alex sighed, "remember what she was like when she first arrived?"

"You mean letting that forked-tailed arsehole slip her one?" asked Gene.

Alex ignored him.

"So angry, confused, fighting you every step of the way. Now she fights by your side. They all do. Always have done."

"Eventually," said Gene.

Alex stared into the deep red liquid on her glass.

"It's tough, Gene," she said quietly, "coming here. Not knowing what's happening. Thinking you've gone crazy. Missing everyone from home. Your friends…family…"

Gene gave a hefty sigh. He finished the rest of his wine in one gulp and found his hand wandering to Alex's hair.

"Can't do much about it," he said, "can't tell them. They're not all like Stringer. Kim knows to keep her mouth shut. Can't have the Vickerys of this world blabbing to everyone."

"But Kim," she sighed, "in two thousand and eleven… she told me how hard it was. Adjusting. It took her years, Gene, years. She was so isolated."

"Sounds like she was special circumstances though," said Gene.

"Not just her," Alex sighed, "by his own admission Simon went off the rails when he went home from eighty five because he couldn't handle it. Sam Tyler threw himself off a _roof_ to get back to you. Robin…" she hesitated. Her expression changed a little. "Robin was the only one who seemed… together," she said.

"He was sitting by your bedside telling you he was about to top himself," cried Gene, "you have an interesting interpretation of '_together',_ woman!"

"No, that was different," Alex shook her head, "That wasn't to do with being here. He'd lost Simon, he thought he was going to prison. He was at the end of his tether. But coming here…" she shook her head, "It didn't screw him up the same way it has everyone else."

"Everyone?" Gene thought that was a bit overdramatic, "you've only given me three examples!"

Alex shook her head again.

"I read files," she said, "so many of them. We went to Keats's flat… he'd stored all these reports from people who had been in comas. People on the force. All of them, _all _of them were disturbed and struggling, Gene. All their lives messed up. People up and down the country who come back and think they've gone crazy." She paused. Her heart felt heavy. "Are we doing the right thing here?" she asked quietly, "do we actually help anyone or do we screw them up?"

Gene looked at her as she turned around to face him.

"You shouldn't need to ask that," he said.

Alex sighed and looked away.

"It's different for the majority here," she said, "it's the ones who are still alive. The ones who go back."

Gene exhaled slowly. He knew things were not always perfect. But what else could they do? They were there to do a job. He knew the value the world held for those who had passed too soon, but there was nothing he could do about those who were just stopping by.

"So what about Batman?" he asked, "what makes him so different?"

"What do you mean?"

"You said he was the only one who wasn't falling apart," Gene reminded her, "what made him different?"

Alex shook her head slowly.

"I don't know," she sighed, "maybe because he already knew about this place through Simon before he arrived? Or because they came here together?"

"Wouldn't that make it harder going back on yer own? Gene pointed out.

Alex sighed.

"I don't know," she said, "I just know that he'd handled it better than any of them." She shook her head. "I wish I knew if he was doing alright now. I wish I knew what happened after the crash."

She drank some of her wine, then shuffled across the floor back to the decorations. The familiar smell of the tinsel invoked years of memories from Christmases gone by. To her surprise Gene slipped from the couch to join her on the floor and started to unravel some strings of the stuff. She looked at him and flashed a beautiful smile.

"Spread a word of this and Santa won't be sticking 'is hand in yer stockings for a long time," he warned.

Alex gave a smirk.

"That's fair enough," she said. She watched him as he got to his feet and started draping tinsel higgledy-piggledy around the tree in such a haphazard fashion that it reminded her rather of when Molly first helped to decorate the tree at five years old. She tried to stop a giggle escaping. At least he was trying.

"Perhaps we should hang your clams on the tree," she suggested.

"What goes on the top of 'ere?" Gene asked, "You got a fairy? Or should I go and get Shoebury?"

"I've got a star," said Alex.

Gene looked a little horrified.

"Not a bloody star," he mumbled, "Seen enough of those lately."

"Well it looks like you _will_ have to get Simon then," said Alex.

Gene looked around for a moment, found a little teddy bear wearing a t-shirt with the slogan _'I (heart) Grimsby'_ that someone had given to Alex as a souvenir from their holiday and stuck it unceremoniously on the top of the tree.

"There," he said, "that'll do. Decided I didn't want a fairy with a Sam Tyler complex."

Alex smiled as she started to redo the tinsel that Gene had failed to hang correctly. Her struggle to get home had been hard, terrifying and terribly emotional but it had been worth it. Totally and utterly worth it. Sitting in her home with Gene, wine and a very sloppy Christmas tree, she had everything she need, right there.

~xXx~

Simon screamed, swore and ran in circles around the kitchen.

"Is your eye OK?" Kim asked anxiously.

Simon stopped running, clutching his right eye.

"Next time I buy champagne, _you're _opening the bottle," he told her.

"If it got you in the eye then how come it's now buried in your ceiling?" Kim wondered.

Simon glanced up with his good eye and found the cork buried in the tile above him.

"It was some blast," he muttered, "must have ricocheted."

When Simon regained his sight a little he took the bottle and a couple of glasses through to the lounge. The pizza was already sitting on the coffee table, _Scrooged_ was on TV and a blanket was waiting to warm them up on the cold Christmas Eve night. Feeling like a couple of kids waiting for Santa, they settled beneath it and started to munch on pizza.

"This is absolutely the last time we order pizza," Kim told him, "I was trying to lose weight, remember?"

"Everyone overeats at Christmas," said Simon.

"Yeah, but this has been a three-week Christmas," said Kim, "ever since Gene started staying here. It's been pizza every night."

"Not _quite_ every night," said Simon, but he knew it wasn't far off. "Anyway, we probably dropped six stones apiece after Gene's meal the other night." His stomach still lurched at the thought of the fishy biscuits.

"So what twenty-first century programme are you going to pitch next?" asked Kim.

Simon shuddered.

"I think I'll steer clear of pitching TV shows to CID," he said.

Kim took a bite of her pizza and chewed it thoughtfully.

"Do you think I'll get home next year?" she asked.

"I don't know, Kim," Simon said quietly, "time is screwy here. Alex has been in a coma for two and half years in the real world, but that translates to fifteen years here. When I came here the first time I was only in eighty five for three days, but in the real world I'd been unconscious for weeks. You could be here another day, another year… I have no idea." He sighed. "At least you know you make it."

Kim nodded slowly. She took a deep breath.

"So," she said quietly, "my fellow friend from the future – what delights do we have to look forward to in ninety six, presuming I'll be here?"

Simon tried to think.

"There's Euro Ninety Six," he said.

Kim looked at him in surprise.

"I didn't know you liked football;," she said.

"I'm full of surprises," he told her, "ahh, the excitement of the tournament…"

"…And the bloody disappointment in the semi-final," said Kim.

Simon frowned.

"We were supposed to be looking on the _bright_ side," he said, "besides, maybe I'll bung a big bet on Germany to win and at least avenge the result!"

Kim nodded.

"Wish I could remember more of the scores," she said cheekily, "we could be made for life!"

"I can remember most of them," said Simon. She looked at him a little curiously. "I had a poster… filled them all in…" she was staring at him by now and he blushed. "I'm even a geek when it comes to sport, aren't I?"

Kim laughed.

"Nah, you're alright," she said.

Simon ate some more pizza and thought back to 1996.

"Oh, Eurovision," he said, "Gina G – _Ooh Ahh Just a Little Bit."_

"You're just thinking of stuff you can put money on now, aren't you?" eased Kim.

Simon smiled.

"Tim Henman first became known at Wimbledon," he said.

"OK, you're sportier than I realised," Kim said in surprise.

"Good TV shows," he said, "can't wait to catch _Karaoke_ again. The programme, I mean, not Bammo doing his Christmas songs. Then there's _Cold Lazarus_ of course. And Reboot was excellent…"

"Ahh, OK, back to geek territory," Kim teased.

"Alright, what about you?" asked Simon, "what did you enjoy in ninety six, the first time around?"

Kim took a deep breath and thought carefully.

"Loved the music scene," she said, "spent the summer watching music videos on The Box."

Simon gave a little gasp of excitement.

"Oh! The Spice Girls arrive on the scene next year!" he cried.

Kim slapped her forehead.

"I was thinking of Underworld, Pulp, Shed Seven…" she shook her head. "Every time you gain a hint of credibility it goes right back down the toilet, doesn't it?"

"Hey! I'll have you know I have gained a _lot_ of credibility today with my new image," said Simon.

"_Yeah, yeah,"_ said Kim.

"It's true! I even got invited for a game of darts."

Kim smiled and picked up her glass.

"Either way," she said, "I know this isn't how either of us wanted to spend Christmas, and I know you've adopted the Scrooge hat for the festive season…"

"Hey!"

"…But," Kim continued, "if there's one good thing to come out of my time here it's making a friend. Meeting you. I don't make friends that easily. I'm glad our time here had overlapped."

Simon nodded.

"Me too," he said.

Kim put down her pizza and picked up her glass.

"Now you're becoming a drinker you've got to toast," she told him.

Simon picked up his champagne.

"Toast who?" he asked, "whatever idiot thought it would be a good idea to send the dead and dying to some other world and leave us separated from our family and friends?"

Kim shook her head.

"No," she sighed. She paused. "To absent friends."

Simon froze as she clinked her glass against his with a smile. He swallowed as he looked at her. The words from the radio ran through his mind and he felt himself trembling just a little. As he stared Kim's face seemed to morph into the older features he'd seen her with just a few days before but only for a moment, then she was back to normal, drinking her champagne and giggling as the bubbled tickled her nose.

He gave a nervous smile and took a big gulp of his champagne. It was a bit of a mistake as the liquid was fizzier than he expected and made him splutter a little but his choking at least gave him a little distraction from the echoes in his mind. He smiled thinly as he looked at Kim. He knew one day she would wake up in her own time and go on to live a life of her own but somehow it seemed that wasn't going to be the end of the story.

"Absent friends," he whispered.


	98. Chapter 57, 1995: Con Dolore

_**A/N: Last of 3 tonight! A word to the wise, if you are unaware of the particular puppets mentioned in this chapter then do look them up on Wikipedia or YouTube! Their appearances on The Big Breakfast were a constant through my teenage years!**_

**Chapter Fifty Seven**

Kim was awoken in the early hours of the morning by a strange clanking sound and some eerie howling noises. She blinked a few times. The clock on the video came into focus. It was only half past five.

"What the hell?" she mumbled, rubbing her eyes. The clanking became louder and to her horror a figure started lumbering towards her through the darkness.

"_Kiiiiiim,"_ it howled, "_Kiiiiiiiiim! It is time for you to see the error of your waaaaaaays!"_

Kim groaned deeply and slapped her forehead.

"Go away Simon, it's too early in the morning for this," she mumbled.

Simon froze.

"How did you know it was me?" he demanded.

"Who else is it likely to be?" she yawned.

"I'm supposed to be the ghost of Bob Marley!" Simon protested.

"_Jacob_ Marley!" Kim slapped her forehead again, "it's Jacob Marley and Bob Cratchit! For god's sake Simon, if you're going to haunt me then at least do your homework!"

Simon looked incredibly disappointed.

"B-but I made chains out of handcuffs and everything," he told her.

"And I'll make a makeshift weapon out of that lamp and clobber you with it until you stop haunting me and go back to bed," she said, "it's too fucking early for this! Get some sleep or no presents in the morning."

Simon dropped his makeshift chains to the ground with a clatter.

"You're no fun," he moped and slumped back to bed.

He had been staring at the ceiling for the last two hours. He'd managed to get a little sleep initially but the champagne hadn't been enough to knock him out for the night. Laying there had been doing him no good, thinking about Robin and his family back home, wishing he was anywhere but there.

He closed his eyes and tried to sleep but too many thoughts were haunting him. The strange vision in the tattooist's, the radio broadcast the memo about Robin – the strange signs and moments were driving him crazy.

Worlds had collided, he felt certain of that. For just a split second Robin was right there beside him. So what was he seeing now? Were the worlds drawing parallel for a few seconds time every now and then? How else was he picking up these strange moments? Some of the things he'd seen worried him a little. The sight of a tattooed Robin had shocked him.

He'd been laying there for a few minutes when he felt as though he might just be slipping into a slumber. His head grew fuzzy and sleep began to creep upon him, but all too quickly a voice shook him from his sleep.

"_Simon! Hey, Simon!"_

Simon awoke with a jolt. He froze. He'd heard a voice but wasn't sure who it was or where it was coming from. He felt his heart pounding against the bedsprings as he lay in his front, clutching the pillow. He stayed as still as he could, holding his breath and trying not to scream. A few seconds passed and nothing else happened. Perhaps he'd imagined it?

"_Simon!"_

Nope, not imagined it.

"Oi! Simon! Are you going to ignore us all day?"

_Us?_

Simon took a deep breath. He knew he had to look and see who was there, but he really and truly did not want to. Eventually he turned over, very slowly, and his eyes found themselves settling upon two bright, gaudy puppets appearing over the end of the bed.

"_ARRGGGHHHHH!"_ he screamed, "Zig and Zag!"

"AAAAAAARRRGGGGHHHHH!" They screamed back, "It's Simon Shoebury!"

"Oh for fuck's sake," Simon pulled the sheet up around his chest, well and truly aware that he did not want two puppets ogling him, "why puppets? Why do I always get the _fucking puppets? _First it was that stupid squeaky gopher in eighty five, then when I first came back it was Badger and now I get you two. Aren't you supposed to be hosting the Big Breakfast or something?"

"That's no way to talk to us!" Zag told him crossly.

"Mister Shoebury!" Zig began, "I like your new haircut!"

Simon glowered at him.

"_Thanks,"_ he said bluntly, "now, not that I didn't watch you for years on the telly and enjoy your witty banter but I really would like to try to get some more sleep."

"Can we move this into the bathroom?" asked Zag, "it's a more familiar environment for us."

"No we bloody can't!" cried Simon.

"Why?" asked Zag, "is there a floater in your bog?"

"A fl- what the fuck are you even _doing_ here?" Simon's patience was fast evaporating.

"No, I think he's got an embarrassing soap in the shape of an arse!" said Zig.

Simon threw his hand to his mouth.

"You can't say 'arse'!" he cried, "children watch you every day!"

"We can say bollocks too!" said Zag.

"And titties!" added Zig.

Simon's hands clasped over his face. His brain couldn't handle it. He'd watched The Big Breakfast near-religiously through his teenage years. Zig and Zag were not allowed to say words like that!

"So aside from standing here and saying words that…" he flinched, "I _really_ never wanted to hear from your mouths, is there any purpose behind your visit? Other than to give me more fodder for my steadily increasing phobia of puppets?"

"We have come to show you the error of your ways," Zag told him.

"And have a snog," said Zig.

"What?" Simon cried, hiding farther behind the covers. The thought of getting a mouthful of puppet hair freaked him out beyond comparison.

"OK, not a snog," Zig said in disappointment."

"But we are here to show you the error of your ways," said Zag.

"What error of my ways?" Simon really wished there was a fire exit from his life.

"You've been a Scrooge!" cried Zag.

"And poor little Kimmy-wimmy hasn't even got a little Christmas tree to call her own," Zig somehow managed to pull a face, which was some feat considering he was only a puppet.

"Oh, I _see,"_ Simon threw his hands in the air, "I get it now. Just because I pulled that Christmas Carol joke on Kim now I'm dreaming about it happening to me. But why do I get _you_ two?"

"Come with us, Simon," said Zag, "we're going to show you Christmas Past!"

"This _is_ Christmas Past," mumbled Simon, "it's nineteen ninety fi-"

But the end of his sentence was cut off as he suddenly found himself standing in a room, familiar from long ago. He found his mouth falling open a little. He had no sense of whether anyone could see or hear him, whether he was there in a physical sense or as some kind of ghostly apparition.

There he was, right in front of him; seventeen years old, sitting on the floor. Wrapping paper was stroon around him. One of his sisters sat on the couch, a mug of something warm in one hand and a CD in the other as she read the track listing on the back. On the floor in the middle of the wrapping paper was an X-Files calendar and a couple of Red Dwarf videos. To one side was a bigger box with a new CD player and in the corner of the room sat another stack of presents and boxes waiting to be unwrapped.

"_That was Claire,"_ a deep voice said, _"she'll be a little late, the car wouldn't start, but she'll be here in about an hour."_

"_Dad, thank you!" _the young Simon held up the calendar and lied through his teeth as he said, "_I didn't know there was a calendar out!"_

"Yes you did," Simon whispered as a tiny smile flickered onto his face, watching his younger self in the excitement, "you knew every last damn piece of X-Files merchandise that was out that year."

"_WOW!"_ Zig popped up before him, scaring seven shades of hell out of Simon and sending him reeling backwards. "Look at that calendar! I want one! Can I have one, Zag? Can I?"

"That's Simon's!" Zag told him, "Well, _little_ Simon's." he turned to _'big_ Simon'. "Aw, isn't he cute?"

Simon glanced at Zag.

"I don't get why you're showing me this," he frowned, "this is just making me sadder. It's only going to make me hate Christmas more."

The puppets exchanged a glance.

"Alright," said Zag, "Zig, let's move on!"

Zig's hand was getting perilously close to touching Simon's leg.

"You seem nice, Simon!" he said, staring up at him.

"And you seem like more of a prat than I remember," Simon folded his arms.

The next thing he knew he was in the middle of Alex's flat in the blink of an eye. There was a tree in the corner. It hadn't been there when he and Kim had been round for Come Dine With Me, he was sure of that. Some of the tinsel looked a bit poorly hung and there was a teddy bear hanging from the top, but it was bright and festive. There were some presents below it, two half-finished glasses of wine on the table and a kinky Santa outfit draped over the side of the couch.

"Ohhhhhhh, someone's going to be getting a _real_ treat for Christmas!" Zig cried excitedly.

"I don't think we ought to be here," Simon frowned.

"Oh! Oh! We should!" cried Zig, "we should hang around until she puts that outfit on!"

Simon scowled.

"You are a lot more perverted than I remember on telly," he said.

"Look at this room, Simon!" cried Zag, "they made the effort! Even after she's been tripping the light fantastic in two thousand and eleven for ages – they still put up a tree."

"Look, we all deal with stuff in our own ways," said Simon, "I don't want to even acknowledge Christmas. That's just me."

"But it's not just you, is it, Simon?" Zag asked.

"Is it?" Zig backed up his friend while invading Simon's personal space and stroking his knee.

Simon slapped his fluffy hand away and stepped back in horror.

"What the hell do you think you are doing?" he cried.

"Just being friendly," Zig protested.

"Well it's not working," Simon told them, "and you're not changing my mind."

"Then we'll have to show you Christmas Future!" cried Zig.

"Erm, I think you've overreached there," said Zag.

"Huh?"

"We can't actually travel through time," said Zag.

"We can't?"

"No."

"Wait a minute," frowned Simon, "Christmas 'past'… that's actually happening right now, isn't it? Because that was me, in my house, _today_, in nineteen ninety five." He started to scowl. "You had me believe it was Christmas Past but it was actually just taking me to my old bloody house in this exact same year!"

"Give us a break!" protested Zag, "we're only puppets! We can't work miracles!"

"Apart from with my hands," said Zig, getting frisky again.

This time Simon stamped on him.

"For god's sake, just take me home!" he cried, "all this is doing is freaking me out! It's not making me change!"

Zag sighed.

"Alright," he said, "let's take him home, Zig."

There was a little burst of wind and suddenly Simon was back home, in his lounge.

"_Finally_," said Simon. He was about to walk into the bedroom when he heard a soft whimpering sound. He turned around slowly and saw Kim, clutching her duvet to her chest, drying her eyes on it every few seconds.

"Kim?" Simon began to worry. He started to walk toward her but Zag stopped him.

"She can't hear you Simon."

"Why not?"

"Because of some weird metaphysical crap we don't understand because we're only puppets," said Zig.

"What's wrong with her?" Simon asked.

"She misses her family so much," said Zag, "she's heartbroken. She'd do anything to see them."

"And you wouldn't even let her have a tree…" said Zig.

"But… but that's just a _tree!"_ cried Simon, "what difference does it make?"

"Why didn't you want a tree Simon?"

"I – I didn't want any reminders of Christmas," he said a little sadly.

"Well Kim did. She needed them. She needed them to feel close to her family.

Simon gulped.

"God," he whispered.

"And you've taken it away from her," Zig blubbed, "I had you all wrong, Simon! You're a meanie!"

Zig's fury reached epic proportions and he headbutted Simon in the privates. A crescendo of pain overwhelmed him which brought a black veil over his vision and he suddenly woke up back in his bed, sat bolt upright and scanned the room immediately for enemy puppets as he breathed deeply.

"_Shit!"_ he cried.

Well that was a new one.

What was it with the damn puppets anyway?

"_Kim!"_

Suddenly he remembered the crying Kim he'd seen. Was that real? Had any of it been real? He had no idea.

Tumbling out of bed he ran through to the lounge where he found Kim still crying on the couch.

"Oh Kim."

She looked up in alarm and embarrassment,.

"Simon, go back to bed," she whispered.

"Kim, come here," Simon felt an overwhelming sense of guilt come over him as he sat down beside her and wrapped his arms around her. He held her head against his chest as she cried. It was a deep and cleansing cry, the type of which she'd been fighting ever since her miscarriage and all that she'd been through at the hands of Keats. Now being away from her family at Christmas was the catalyst to letting those tears fall.

"I'm sorry," she could barely gasp.

"_Sorry?_ Kim you've got nothing to be sorry for!" Simon told her firmly, "It's me – I've been a total scrooge. I _have._ It's all my fault. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

He held her silently for several minutes. It felt like so much longer. Finally as her tears began to dry and her breathing evened out she drew back a little from him and wiped her eyes on her sleeve. She looked at him, feeling so embarrassed and ashamed. She hated showing any sign of weakness. It wasn't her.

"Christmas," she whispered, "it's just my 'thing'. I know you'll take the piss –"

"No, I won't," Simon told her seriously.

"But I just…" she gave a tiny shrug, "I just love it. And to be away from home and not have anything to remind me of it… to remind me of my family…"

"Hey," Simon put a hand on her arm and looked at her seriously, "Kim, I'm sorry. For me, the only way I could cope was blocking Christmas out. You wanted to go in the opposite direction. I totally blocked out that you might have been feeling that way and I feel like a total twat." He took a deep breath. "Kim, look… I saw your video," he wasn't sure this was territory he should be going into but he felt it was important, "remember? I watched it in Keats's basement. However long you're here… you're not unconscious for all that long out there. You're not _missing_ any Christmases. It's not like this is a real Christmas in your life. You'll be home before the next one comes around and you'll get to enjoy that with your family. This one… think of it as a bonus Christmas. Like an extra one slotted in somewhere. I know it's making you think of home and really miss everyone, but we'll make the best of it."

"Oh, _how?"_ Kim found a tissue and blew her nose, "it's not like A Christmas Carol. You can't look out the window and yell at a small child to bring you home the biggest goose he can fine."

Simon breathed in and out slowly. He bit his lip.

"Maybe not," he said, "but I know where there's a turkey. And a tree. And presents. And everything else festive that you can think of,"

Kim hesitated.

"Where?" she said eventually.

Simon bit his lip.

"Get dressed," he said, "we'll have some breakfast and pack up for a day out.

"A day out where?"

"You'll see," said Simon.

As he got to his feet and retreated to his bedroom to get some clothes on he felt so guilty for taking that Christmas link away from Kim, but he was determined to give it back to her. He was going to find a way to fill her Christmas with festive cheer. He would make sure she had the turkey and the tree and everything else that she needed to feel better about that day.

It would be the best Christmas ever.

Wouldn't it?


	99. Chapter 58, 1995: Empfindung

_**A/M: 2 chapters tonight and one chapter tomorrow. Oh, and erm, merry Christmas? Well, might as well be a few months early!**_

**Chapter Fifty Eight**

She couldn't outrun him, no matter how hard she tried. The faster she ran, the more he began to catch up with her. She ran and ran until she couldn't run any more and then there it was, his face right in front of hers, gloating, staring, cackling with evil laughter.

"_You can't escape me,"_ he hissed, "_It doesn't matter where you hide – I'm always going to be there. You'll never get rid of me."_

She tried to scream – _oh, _she tried _so_ hard to scream but no matter how hard she tried no sound would come out. She tried to force it, tried to let the sound come forth and her screams be heard but her voice was silent. Then suddenly she was wide awake and her screams became real. Loud, deafening, strong.

She sat bolt-upright and found her heart thumping away and her palms sweating profusely. Her breath was fast and shallow and her head was clammy. She closed her eyes again and tried hard to get her breathing under control. It was a dream. It was _just _a dream. So why did it scare her so much?

She felt hands clasping her shoulders and she gasped a little but found to her relief it was Gene, his face concerned and his touch warm and comforting.

"Oh god," she breathed, her breathing finally starting to slow down again.

"Alex?" Gene's voice was strange. It reflected a kind of concern she'd rarely heard. Using her name was unusual too. He had to be really worried to call her 'Alex.'

"I'm OK," she said quickly, "I'm OK." But she knew he could tell she wasn't as she sat, tense and stiff.

"What was it this time?" Gene tried to joke but his voice was anxious, "more cabbage soup?"

"I'm fine," Alex whispered.

"Yer shoulders say otherwise," said Gene as his hands ran across them, feeling them rigid and shaky. He watched her look down. "You not going to tell me?" he asked. When she stayed silent that was the only clue he needed. He exhaled and felt his spirits deflate with his lungs. "Keats."

Alex nodded silently. She didn't want to talk about it. She'd been free of thoughts and nightmares about him for a few days but this had set her back a mile. She wished she could get him out of her head forever but his evil ways had left him in there for good. She felt Gene's arms pulling her closer. She felt so guilty about it but her whole body felt tense, she couldn't relax into his embrace, no matter how much she wanted to. Her nightmare had affected her so deeply.

"I'm alright," she lied again.

"No you're not," said Gene. She heard him sigh. "He can't get you now, Alex."

Alex wished she could believe that, she really did.

"He's always going to be there, Gene," she whispered, "he's always going to be lurking around the corner. He'll never leave us alone."

"He's taking a very long nap," Gene reminded her, "they've found more brain activity in Simon's bloody trouser tent than in his head. And even if he woke up there's a couple of bookends on the door to stop him wandering off. He won't be bothering us, Bols. He can't do anything now."

Alex didn't feel so sure.

"He was warning me, Gene," she whispered.

"It was just a dream."

Alex shook her head.

"He was warning me I'll never get him off my back," she whispered, "it doesn't matter what we do, he'll always find a way to get to us."

"If he ever chooses to open his eyes again then he'll be spending a long holiday in the cells," said Gene.

"For what?" sighed Alex, "You know how slippery he is, gene. He'll get out of it. He'll find a way. And if he can't do it legally, he'll disappear in a puff of smoke. He can vanish from handcuffs, he can jump off of buildings and disappear."

"Bolly," Gene turned her around and tried to look her in the eye but she kept looking away. Finally he held her face and stared at her. "Jimbo is not going to get you. He's Tom, we're Jerry, he's always going to get the anvil on his head."

Alex wished she could believe that.

"He always finds a way, Gene," she whispered, "always finds a way to come back."

"He's in a coma, Bols. He's probably gone back to ten-sixty-six or something. Gone to bother the Normans while they're trying to invade. Probably trying to bonk Norman the Conqueror."

Despite herself that thought did strike Alex as a little amusing. She gave a tiny smile but it faded fast.

"And when Norman gets tired of him, clobbers him and sends him home?"

Gene sighed and shook his head.

"Then he's going to fail, again, because he'd well and truly outnumbered here. Me, you, even Shoebury and his bloody cookery programmes. Some teams can't be beaten."

Alex gave a flicker of a smile. She looked down and tried to pull herself together.

"Of course we can't," she said quietly.

Gene pulled away a little and looked at her.

"You want your Christmas present or what?"

Alex gave a gentle laugh.

"Nice subject changing tactics, Gene," she said quietly.

"Do you want it or not?"

Alex sighed and rolled her eyes.

"Alright," she said.

"Don't feel I'm forcing you," Gene told her, "I can always keep it."

"In that case I hope it's not edible knickers," she said, "they'd never fit."

Gene reached down the side of the bed and pulled out an envelope. He handed it to her. She looked at it incredulously.

"Well aren't you going to open it?" he asked.

Alex wasn't sure.

"These are not illustrations based on the graffiti in the toilets are they?" she asked.

"Just open the bloody thing, woman!"

With a sigh, Alex opened it. There were several twenty pound notes inside. She frowned and glanced at Gene.

"What's this? A backhander?"

"For what?"

"Or a hint to buy my own presents?"

Gene huffed.

"It's my half of the rent," he said.

Alex stared at him.

"Your –"

Gene nodded.

"We'll see about getting me name on the lease in the new year," he said, "if that's alright with Lady B?"

Alex looked at him in surprise. In the ten and a half years they'd been together properly this was the first time he'd shown any interest in putting a firm footing on their home. It had always been _her_ flat. He just happened to stay there every night. It wasn't that he was being a cheapskate by not paying rent. It had been part of his reluctance to show commitment stemming from his fear of losing Alex. Despite proposing just before her shooting he'd still felt certain she was going to end up going back to her own time and choosing Molly eventually. But she had come back to him despite all of the odds, and that gave him a confidence in their future he'd never had before. No longer did he constantly fear her disappearing before his eyes. He knew she wanted to stay by his side, and he was going to do anything in his power to make that happen.

"Are you serious?"

She couldn't have been more surprised if he'd given her a space rocket with double super laser blammers for Christmas.

"What? My money not good enough for you?"

Alex tried to speak but she was lost for words. She looked at him, her eyes open wide. It was more of a shock than when he'd gotten a round in a few days earlier.

"Gene –" she couldn't work out what she wanted to say or what the gesture meant to her. So after a few moments of stunned silence she slowly put her arms around his neck and showed him how much that gift meant to her. She closed her eyes and for the first time since she'd awoken from her nightmare a genuine smile washed over her face. She felt his arm around her back, his fist clenched just to make sure he wasn't being too soft and girly in his gesture. Finally she drew back a little, looked him in the eye and said, "This had better not be an elaborate ploy to get out of wrapping anything up?"

"Yer've got more under the tree," he told her.

Alex hesitated.

"Is it edible knickers?"

_Impossible,_ thought Gene, _no way could she have known that._

"Wait and see," he told her. He took the money and laid it by the bed, then lowered her back against the pillow. "But for the foreseeable future, Bolly, I don't anticipate seeing you in any kind of knickers, edible or otherwise."

The tone of his voice and the look on his face helped to chase away the nightmare she had faced. They spoke right to her, showed her that she need not worry about Keats because whatever he tried he would never get the better of them. She let out a tiny moan as she felt his hand travel slowly up her thigh. The touch of his fingers drove her crazy and her eyes closed as she felt his breath descend upon her and his lips press against her own.

It was just as his fingers began to travel a little higher that they heard the first tap on the window. They drew apart and looked at each other. They were two floors up – who the hell could be –

_Tap!_

They saw it this time, the tiny stone that hit the window.

"Ignore it," Alex breathed, her arm wrapped around his neck, pulling him in closer.

_Tap._

Who the bloody hell is chucking stones at yer window on bloody Christmas day?" cried Gene.

"It's probably just kids," sighed Alex, "ignore them, they'll go away."

But another, slightly larger stone hit the window.

"Right, that's it!" Gene cried, throwing back the duvet and getting to his feet, "Whoever it is I'm going to tell them to piss off Gene Genie style."

"Like that?" cried Alex, "you'll be arrested for indecent exposure!"

Gene glanced down. She was probably right. Either that or someone was going to use him for hoopla practice.

"Shit, where's me bath robe?" asked Gene.

"You don't own one," Alex reminded him, "you said they're for sherry-drinking nancy-boys who are too chicken to become naturists."

"Oh yeah," Gene remembered, "Bollocks."

Just then they heard voices, just quiet and vague at first but definite voices coming from outside.

"_Maybe they're not in."_

"_They've got to be in. It's Christmas morning."_

"_Why can't we just ring the bell?"_

"_Because they might just ignore it! Besides, this is more fun."_

"_Well no one's responding so what are we going to do now?"_

"_Time for plan B."_

Alex and gene exchanged a glance. They didn't know who was out there or what plan B was but they didn't think they were going to enjoy it. They were right. As they listened in silence a very untuneful and incorrect carol began.

"_Good King Wenceless last looked out…"_

"_That's not right!"_

"_What?"_

"_It's Good King Wenceslas."_

"_Are you sure?"_

"_Yes."_

"_I thought his name was Good King Wenceless and he last looked out on…"_

"_No, it's not 'last looked out'! It's Good King Wenceslas looked out…"_

"_OK, we'll try again."_

"_Good King Wenceslas looked out, on the feast of –"_

"_Simon…"_

"_Oh bollocks, you! You can't put your own name in the song!"_

"_What?"_

"_It's Stephen! The feast of Stephen!"_

"_Not Simon?"_

"_No!"_

"_Well that's what my dad used to sing to me."_

"_He was probably trying to make you feel less like a worthless nerd by making out you had your own feast!"_

"_Oi! That's below the belt!"_

Gene stared at Alex.

Alex stared at Gene.

"Bloody Shoebury!" he cried.

He stormed across to the window, opened it and yelled,

"Oi! Some of us are trying to get our hands in our _stockings_ up here!"

As Simon and Kim's eyes turned upwards their reactions couldn't have been more different. In his fury Gene had quite forgotten about his state of undress. He wasn't sure which was worse, Simon practically swooning backwards or Kim bursting into laughter, covering her face and crying,

"_Oh my eyes! MY EYES!"_

"Shit!" he muttered, ducking out of view, grabbing the duvet from the bed, leaving Alex shivering as he covered himself up.

"_Guv, let us in!"_

"You two are coming nowhere near this flat today!" Gene barked at them, "heterosexuals only! I do not care what Judy Garland sang about, I do not wish to make the yuletide gay!"

"_We've brought beer!"_ Kim told him as though that made all the difference.

"We've got more to drink already than the bloody offy," Gene told them, "now kindly remove yourselves from the car park before my fist gives you a lesson in how to resemble Rudolph in one easy step!"

"_Oh come on, Gene,"_ Simon pleaded, _"you've got to let us in. We just want to have a nice Christmas with you! We haven't got a tree or a turkey or anything."_

"You'll be getting a tree up yer backside in a minute," Gene told him, closing the window in a hurry and retreating to the bed.

"_Oh great – now what?"_

"_We keep singing until they let us in."_

Gene covered the shivering Alex back up and climbed on top of her.

"Now, the future Missus Hunt, where were we?" he began.

Alex's mouth twitched into a smile.

"You've never called me that before," she said.

"Serves you right for buggering off to the future as soon as I did the decent thing and put a ring on yer finger," he told her, "now stop talking."

He closed his eyes and began to kiss her again, his lips pressed against hers, his hands beginning g to wander across her soft skin. He could feel her shiver and writhe a little as she pressed her body closer to him, and just as things started _happening_ again, a less than beautiful chorus of _God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen_ started from outside which Kim and Simon lost their way in halfway through and turned into _Ding Dong Merrily On High_ by accident.

"Why is Simon doing the soprano part?" Alex wondered.

"It's worse than that," mumbled Gene, "he's doing the bloody descant!"

They listened to a few more seconds of the raucous singing before Alex shook her head and pulled him in close again.

"Ignore them," she growled, her hands slipping through his hair and pulling his face to hers. But even as they kissed Gene couldn't block out what seemed to be a rendition of '_We Three Kings'_ mixed with something that resembled '_The Sun Has Got His Hat On.'_

This was worse than the Keats video.

"Nothing doing, Bols," he grumbled miserably, climbing back off and leaving her frowning in frustration, "even Casanova couldn't do the business with Shoe-Boy and Metal Mickey serenading 'im from out there."

"Gene!" cried Alex, "you're leaving me hanging?"

"Just long enough to dispose of a couple of bodies," Gene muttered. He pulled on his clothes, stomped to the window, opened it and barked,

"You two have to have a bloody death wish!" he paused as he watched them looking at him expectantly. With a sigh he finally conceded. "Get yer arses in the front door."

"_Yes!"_ Simon punched the air with delight

Gene turned to Alex as he prepared to buzz them in.

"Death wish, I tell you Bolly," he said, "and I'm warning you now – if they step out of line they might be _getting _that wish come true an' all!"


	100. Chapter 59, 1995: Festivamente

_**A/N: 2nd chapter tonight**_

**Chapter Fifty Nine**

"Right," Gene paced up and down in front of Kim and Simon, "here are the ground rules. Number one, no more singing. At all. _Ever._ In fact, the next time I hear a duet from the pair of you I'm going to perform surgery on ver vocal chords. Without anaesthetic. Number two, you bugger off as soon as the Queen's Speech has been on. Number Three, yer turkey's rationed, but you're expected to eat at least half the sprouts."

Alex crossly tidied away her kinky Santa outfit.

"We were in the middle of something rather important," she grumbled.

"We just wanted to come and spend Christmas with you," Simon tried to make puppy dog eyes but they didn't work. Robin was always better at that than he was. He just looked like he was putting it on. When Robin did it he usually looked sincere.

"You'll be spending your new year in the dole queue," Gene warned as he took the beer they'd brought through to the kitchen.

Alex followed him crossly.

"Gene, why did you let them in?" she hissed.

Gene cursed himself silently. If he was honest he was already regretting his decision. All he wanted was a quiet Christmas day with bolly in a glass and Bolly in bed. He'd had grand plans for various forms of sprout avoidance and there were edible knickers under the tree. It was supposed to have been the greatest Christmas on record. Instead, the only record he was likely to break was 'most swearwords used in one day'.

"Buggered if I know," he muttered, "should have left then to freeze."

"Then why didn't you?" cried Alex, "this was supposed to be our day, Gene!"

"I must have had a brainstorm," Gene mumbled. He picked up two cans of lager. "Got an idea. Both bloody lightweights – Shoebury's _in training_ and Stringer's lost her mojo. Couple of lagers they'll be well away. They'll fall asleep, we drop 'em back at Simon's, get back here and it's Christmas afternoon with edible knickers for afters."

Alex took a deep breath. She wasn't sure about this.

"I'm going to get showered and dressed," she said, "they'd better be paralytic by the time I come out of the bathroom, Gene, I'm warning you!"

Gene nodded and took the cans back to the lounge where Kim and Simon were admiring the tree.

"Nice decorating, said Simon.

"Interesting tree topper," said Kim.

Yeah, well, we didn't want to stare at more stars and Shoebury would have broken the tree with his big arse."

"Big _arse?"_ cried Simon, more offended about that than about being labelled a fairy.

Gene handed them each a can.

"Merry bloody Christmas," he said. He slumped into a seat and shook his head slowly, "what did we do to deserve this dubious honour anyway?"

"Simon's been having an attack of the Scrooges," Kim began, "and then he was visited by three ghosts…"

"Two puppets actually," Simon said haughtily.

"Who showed him the error of his ways."

Gene looked from one to the other.

"Sounds like the biggest box load of contrived bollocks I've ever heard," he said.

Simon looked down.

"I've been an arsehole and Kim needed to be around Christmas stuff; you've got a tree and we haven't," he said.

Gene glared.

"Well that sounds more realistic," he said.

"How serious were you about the sprouts?" Kim asked warily.

Gene ignored the question.

"Drink yer beer and watch telly," he said, flicking the set on, "and bloody cheer up! Pair of bloody Christmas arsefaces."

Simon stared in horror as the TV set warmed up and Noel Edmonds appeared.

"Oh bloody hell!" he cried, "not that prat!"

"Hmm…" Kim began, "where have I seen that jumper before…?"

~xXx~

"Far be it from me to cast doubt your way but your plan doesn't seem to be working, Gene," Alex hissed as they watched Simon and Kim from the kitchen. They were both more or less legless but showed no signs of sliding into an alcohol-induced slumber.

"They've got to be out for the count soon," Gene said, "Look at them. Kim's pie-eyed, Shoebury's bloody _cross_eyed."

"Well how much have they had?"

"Three cans apiece."

""Three cans?" she looked at the clock, "how long was I in the shower?"

"Noel Edmonds was on," Gene told her, "I downed a few meself."

Alex nodded. That explained a lot.

"Well we need to get rid of them soon," she said, "you haven't opened your stocking yet."

She looked up at him with smoky eyes and ruby-red lips. Her new hair had been immaculately styled and her dress was temptingly tight.

"I hope you're not putting in all this effort for Kim's benefit," he commented with a slight gulp. He wasn't sure how he was going to restrain himself. Things were already threatening to get embarrassing. He was going to have to spend the morning hiding behind a cushion.

"It's just an extra incentive to help you get rid of our _guests_ as quickly as possible," she raised an eyebrow which sent him reeling.

"Fuck me, Bolly," Gene swept his hair back. Since when had Alex been quite this forward?

"Well that _had_ been the plan," Alex told him, "until the Chuckle Brothers turned up at the door."

Gene stared at Kim and Simon who were in fits of hysterics over the BBC's Christmas idents and gave a determined nod.

"Right," he said, "Time to step it up a gear." He looked around, grabbed the scotch and marched into the lounge.

~xXx~

"I really don't…" Gene felt like head-butting the doorway, "three beers, two large scotches and they're still wide awake."

"Too wide awake," Alex folded her arms, "Kim was threatening to dance."

They stared at the drunken pair who were acting out a very pissed version of the Christmas Story which involved Simon with a cushion up his jumper.

"Time for plan B, Bols," said Gene.

Alex sighed.

"I thought the scotch was plan B," she said.

"Plan A was getting them pissed," Gene explained, "plan B is using their unbalanced state to offend and humiliate them."

"Gene, you do that all the time when they're sober," Alex reminded him.

Gene ignored that. He marched back into the lounge to put his plan into action but before he could say anything the drunken pair cried;

"Presents!", accompanied by a show of jazz hands.

Gene stopped in his tracks. Presents? Well, that was different. As long as they all said '_To Gene'_ on the tags, that is.

"Alright," he said a little warily, "let's see the goods."

Alex followed him through in time to see Simon and Kim pulling gifts out of one of the large bags they'd lugged around with them. She too was a little more interested now, although she couldn't help fearing one of them would be a Red Dwarf video.

"Presents?" she asked innocently.

Simon lumped a box into her hands and tried to give her a kiss on the cheek but misaimed and ended up with an earring in his eye.

"This is for you," he mumbled, "ouch."

"That's not the same eye is it?" asked Kim.

"As the cork? Yes," nodded Simon.

Kim handed Gene a small parcel.

"This is for you," she said.

Gene took the present and studied it suspiciously.

"The Gene Genie is not used to small packages," he said.

"So I saw," Simon blurted before the most horrendous blush of his life took over his face. He backed away in his seat, gulped a lot of scotch and pretended to be invisible.

"Oh, Guv, just open it," sighed Kim.

Gene looked at it for a few moments more before unwrapping it slowly and eying her suspiciously. Finally he pulled from within the package a cloth.

"You calling ne a scrubber, Stringer?" he demanded.

"That is a token for one car wash from me," Kim told him, "Couldn't think what to get you so," she hiccupped, "I thought I'd offer to clean your car and maybe I can," she started to giggle guiltily, "get that stain out the back seat too…"

Gene frowned at her, now even more suspicious.

"What do you know about that stain?" he demanded.

"Erm… _oops?"_ Kim said innocently.

"Alex," Simon said loudly, "why don't you open yours?"

"Alright," Alex said a little warily. She began to open up the present he'd given her a moment earlier. A moment later she found herself the not-so-proud owner of a toaster.

"Oh," she said, "um, thank you."

"It's a four slicer!" Simon slurred.

Alex smiled politely.

"Not to seem ungrateful but," she paused, "I do have a toaster."

Simon looked at her like she was talking a foreign language.

"But it's a four slicer," he said again.

Alex gave a nervous smile.

"Uh, yes, well so is mine."

Simon frowned.

"Don't you like your present?" he asked.

"Well yes, it's _lovely,"_ Alex lied, "it's just a little…"

"Boring?" Gene suggested.,

"Impersonal," Alex corrected.

Simon frowned.

"But I thought you liked toast," he said.

"I do, I do," said Alex, "which is why I already have a four slice toaster in the kitchen." She paused. "The exact same one, in fact."

"You see? I even picked one you'd like!" said Simon.

Alex tactfully put the toaster down and tried to change the subject.

"So," she said, "Gene, what have you got for Simon and Kim?"

Gene froze.

"In what way, 'got' for 'em?"

Alex frowned.

"Presents," she said.

Gene coughed.

"Uh, I'll get them from the kitchen," he said.

He disappeared from the room looking shifty. There was some clattering, the sound of tearing paper and the unmistakable sound of lengths of sellotape being pulled from the roll. Finally Gene came back from the kitchen and handed them each a present.

"Here," he said, "merry bloody Christmas bollocks."

Simon and Kim exchanged a glance then each got to work on their over-sellotaped gifts. In their inebriated state this wasn't an easy task but finally Simon got into his and held it aloft.

"A can opener?" he frowned.

Kim finally wrestled hers from the paper.

"A wooden spoon?"

Gene shrugged as two evil glares came in his direction.

"Well?" he frowned, "Shoe-Boy gave Drake a bloody toaster!"

Alex leaned a little closer to Gene.

"Those implements look fairly familiar," she hissed.

Gene cleared his throat and tried to make out he wasn't blushing.

"How many different ways can you make a wooden spoon look?" he asked.

Alex scowled.

"I need a new tin opener and a new spoon in that drawer first thing the day after tomorrow."

"Leave it with me, Bols."

Kim pulled another present for her back and handed it to Alex.

"This is for you, Ma'am," she said.

Alex smiled as she took the package and opened it carefully. Inside was a small book about tattoos. The significance of the gift – a significance that even Kim wouldn't know for a long time – made Alex's eyes mist over.

"Kim," she said quietly.

"You seemed really interested the other day," Kim explained, "I thought you might like this book."

Alex gave a smile that was laden with emotion and memories of events that she had been through and that Kim had still to come in her future.

"Thank you, Kim," she said quietly, "that means a lot. It really does."

Kim couldn't understand Alex's emotional reaction at all and it made her feel a little awkward. Had she upset her in some way? What happened to the tattooed friend Alex had spoken of?

"It's OK," Kim said quietly.

A sudden memory flashed into Alex's head of Kim as her older persona, Layton's bullet passing right through Robin and sinking into the flesh of Kim's neck. She gasped as she realised, for the first time, that her crash wasn't the only parallel event. The wound on Kim's neck shocked her as those memories returned for the first time. Kim… what happened to the other Kim? She had no way of knowing if she made it or not.

"Excuse me," she whispered as she got to her feet. A strong sense of nausea overcame her and she hurried to the kitchen where she stood beside the sink, clutching the edge so tightly that her knuckled turned white. She breathed in deeply and exhaled slowly, constantly replaying in her mind the moment that Kim dropped with a bullet in her neck. It was like watching it on a loop. It wouldn't stop.

_Oh God, Kim…_

She heard footsteps walking slowly towards her. She knew those footsteps well. There was only one person that could be.

"You've gone a bit pasty, Bolly," Gene's voice was anxious as he tried not to show her how worried he was. A hand appeared on her shoulder. "You want to tell me what's wrong?"

Alex turned around slowly and looked at him. She hoped the tears in her eyes weren't too obvious.

"Kim," she whispered, "What happened to her? The bullet wound?" Before Gene could reply she continued, "I know it must sound strange but I… I never thought to ask… I was trying too hard to concentrate on getting strong… I feel selfish now but…"

Gene shook his head.

"Not selfish. You weren't ready to know." He walked to one side and picked up his bottle of scotch and two glasses which he took over to Alex. He poured some for each of them and placed one glass in her slightly trembling hand. "Keats shot her," he said, "well, he tried to shoot Simon. Bullet went right through. Got Kim instead." He lifted his own glass and took a sip. "I was all ready to take her. Shoebury wouldn't let her go."

Alex's eyes closed for a split second and she flinched.

"The bullet passed through," she whispered.

"Right through 'is 'ead."

"No, not Simon," Alex whispered. She looked back at Gene who was looking confused. "Robin."

Gene began to lose his grip on the conversation.

"How did Batman get into this?" he demanded.

"No," Alex whispered, "in two thousand and eleven. Gene, Kim was shot in two thousand and eleven too." She felt panic starting to rise inside of her, "it was just before we chased Layton. Just before the crash. We were chasing him, he turned around and fired. He fired at Robin and the bullet…" She trailed off as the words caught in her throat. There was a very anxious look arriving on Gene's face. "The bullet seemed to pass right through him," her voice was almost inaudible now, "it passed through Robin and it hit Kim."

Gene took a gulp of his scotch. He seemed to take an extraordinarily long time to remove the glass from his lips as though giving him an excuse not to talk. Finally he said,

"That's not possible, Bolly."

"It happened."

"Bullets don't go through flesh and bone without leaving some ruddy great holes!" Gene told her.

"Well what about Simon?" Alex reminded him.

Gene drank the last of his scotch and sat the glass back on the counter.

"That's different," he said, "you know why that happened."

"I was _right there_, Gene," Alex implored him to believe her, "the bullet went right through him, like he wasn't even there." Her voice wobbled a little, "and I have no idea if Kim…" she swallowed, "if she survived."

She busied herself drinking from the glass of scotch in her hand. The liquid numbed the roof of her mouth a little. She looked down but could feel Gene's eyes staring at her. She didn't know what to say.

"Robin," he began eventually, "what did he do?"

Alex couldn't quite meet his gaze. It all felt so surreal and so personal she found it hard to put it into words.

"There was another girl," she whispered, "Robin's friend from work. She knew first aid."

Gene frowned.

"Her name wasn't Susannah was it?" he asked suspiciously.

Alex shook her head.

"Kelly," she said. She took another sip of her drink and breathed in deeply. "I felt… I could feel myself being drawn to Kim. She was going, Gene. And even though I wasn't _here_, I still…." She trailed off and swallowed. Her heart was racing.

"Go on," Gene's voice brought her back to the moment.

"I was going to but…" her tongue ran across her lips. "I-I looked at Robin," she whispered, "like I wasn't sure. Like it was," she swallowed, "wasn't my call."

She looked back at Gene at last. His face looked ashen.

"And what _call_ did he make?" he asked quietly.

Alex swallowed again.

"He took over," she said simply, "it was strange, he was powerful. It was like instinct took over." She knocked back the last of her drink. "He told Kelly to save her life, then forced me out after Layton. I felt like I lost my… my ability to think for myself. I needed that push. I couldn't… couldn't work out what to do." She bit her lip, then realised what she was doing and stopped abruptly. "Robin took over. That bullet was meant for him and it just passed right through." She looked Gene in the eye. "What does this mean, Gene?"

Gene stared at Alex. He felt a strange shudder spread through his body.

"It means," he began quietly, "that I need another one of these." He poured himself a very generous measure of scotch and topped up Alex's glass. He looked spooked and worried. Alex had rarely seen him look that way. "We'll talk tonight," he said pointedly, glancing back to the lounge where Simon and Kim were trying to see where they had gone.

Alex nodded and tried to straighten herself up a little. She made her expression as neutral as she could.

"Tonight," she repeated, already worried about the outcome of that conversation. Then she walked confidently through to the lounge to begin a cover-up.

"Ma'am, are you OK?" asked Kim, "I'm so sorry, I never meant to upset you."

"You didn't," Alex put on a smile, "I'm sorry, I'm a little emotional today. I'm just feeling grateful. So grateful to be back home." She took a deep breath. "Speaking of which…" she walked to the tree and pulled out two small packages. She handed one each to Simon and Kim. "Merry Christmas," she said. She watched them go about opening their presents and bit her lip a little awkwardly as she said, "it's just a little something to say thank you. For not giving up on me."

Despite fumbling, intoxicated fingers both Simon and Kim managed to open their gifts and two gasps of surprise rose from them. Simon held in his hands a silver pen with his name inscribed while Kim held a chunky silver chain with her name on a tag.

"Alex, this is too much," Simon looked at her in absolute surprise, "It's… its beautiful, but it's so expensive, and I've only been here for –"

"You kept Gene sane," she looked him in the eye, "this is my way of saying thank you."

Simon felt a little shy suddenly. He gave an awkward smile.

"Thank you," he whispered.

Kim took the chain from the box and looked at it in the palm of her hand.

"This is beautiful," she whispered.

"I'm sorry you can't take it with you," she said, "when you wake up. But I have so, _so_ much more to thank you for than you'll ever know."

Alex could feel tears building in her eyes again and tried hard to stop them. She put on a smile and forced the tears away.

"Thank you," Kim said a little breathlessly.

"And what do_ I_ get as a thank you?" Gene asked as subtlely as a sledgehammer.

Alex sighed.

"Alright, you can open one now. But save the others for when our _guests_ have gone."

She handed a box to Gene who shook it like a kid and then ripped the wrapping paper to shreds. He stared at the box within. Then he stared at Alex.

"Woody?"

"What?"

"You got me bloody _Woody!"_ Gene cried, "I wanted Buzz Lightyear!"

"Yes," Alex began patiently, "you and every six-to-twelve-year-old in the country. They'd sold out."

"But _Woody?"_

"If you don't like it then you can complain to the toy manufacturers for not making enough!" Alex said haughtily, "and anyway, don't I get to open one from you?"

"Fine," Gene mumbled.

Simon was closest to the tree and reached underneath it.

"How about this one?" he suggested, pulling out a flat, square box.

Gene flushed instantly.

"Uh, no, I think that one's best kept private," he mumbled.

Alex eyed him.

"So I was right about the edible underwear?" she mouthed.

Simon reached into is bag and pulled out a box.

"Gene," he began, "this one's for you – _Hic!"_ the alcohol was doing a number on his coordination and he almost dropped the box on Gene's foot. Luckily Gene rescued it just in time and held it aloft.

"Well, it doesn't look like a jumper," he said with some relief.

"It's _not_ a jumper," Simon promised, "just open it."

With a slight sigh Gene did as Simon instructed and peeled away the paper. It wasn't long before he realised his trepidation had been worthwhile.

"It's a kettle," he stated.

Simon nodded.

"Yes!"

"What do I want with a bloody kettle?"

Simon leaned in close.

"It's for making the tea," he said, tapping his nose as though it was a big secret.

Gene started to scowl.

"Simon," he began, "there is a perfectly good kettle in the kitchen."

"But this one makes six cups at one time!" Simon said proudly.

"_So do most kettles!"_ Gene yelled.

Simon wasn't discouraged by Gene's disappointment though. He reached into his bag again and handed Gene a smaller, heavy box, all wrapped up.

"And I got a extra one for you," he told him, his words becoming more slurred with every moment that passed.

Gene took the box from him. With a deep breath he decided he'd had all the disappointment he could take for one day.

"I think I'll open this later," he said.

"OK," said Simon.

"Later, like when they're lowering me corpse in the ground," Gene added as a mumble.

Alex made her excuses to go and start cooking the Christmas dinner just as Gene was trying to hide the 'extra' present somewhere to forget all about it. It was probably a compacted jumper, he decided.

As she entered the kitchen and set about peeling potatoes, Alex felt her nerves rising again. Memories of 2011 were starting to flood back to her now, each one worrying her more than the last. Robin, Kim, Kelly – what had become of them all? She longed to know, but there was nothing she could do. There was no periscope with a direct view over 2011 after all. All she could do was to pray that all were safe and well, and hope that one day she might be able to find out exactly what happened after the car crashed.

2011 felt so close she could almost reach out and touch it. But that meant her fears for her friends were never far away too.


	101. Chapter 60, 1995: Irato

_**A/N: There was going to be one chapter tonight, but now there are two – one's very long, the other's a little one! I also wanted to say a huge thank you to everyone who is still reading and has left reviews, comments and encouragement, including those I've bumped into outside of FFnet who have told me they've enjoyed this story. **_

_**Last night's second chapter was the 100**__**th**__** chapter which seems totally unbelievable! And to those who have asked if there's going to be another story following this one, yes there is – in fact there's going to be two, one set in 1996 and one in 2011. All will become clear…ish! Anyway, on with the story! X**_

_**~xXx~**_

**Chapter Sixty**

"Gene," Alex's lips were pursed like she'd been sucking a lemon, "I have been on a promise since eight o'clock this morning. It is now…" she glanced at the clock, "half past twelve. The turkey is browning. The potatoes are crisping. The gravy is thickening. But I'm still not getting any. Now, four and a half hours ago you told me you had a great plan to get rid of our unwanted guests who – might I remind you – _you_ allowed into my flat –"

"Our flat," Gene protested.

"Not until your name is on that lease," Alex wasn't letting him wriggle out of this. "Now, you've fed them each four beers, two measures of scotch and a Babycham. They are still fully conscious, laughing at everything from walnuts to pine needles and slowly taking over my lounge. Shoebury's jumper is draped over the curtain rail like a banner. Kim's got antiseptic all over the bathroom from cleaning her piercings! Now, I am a patient woman," Alex became more worked up with every word, "I've worked with you for fifteen years so I'd have to be! But my patience is wearing thin on this occasion. Now, either you find a way to relieve us of these drunken loons and give me what I really want for Christmas, or I will be leaving you to entertain them and taking a very, _very_ long shower. The choice is yours."

Gene gulped. Alex meant business.

"Time to go back to plan B," he said.

"Which was?"

"Abject humiliation," Gene told her.

Alex sighed.

"Look at the state of them, Gene – they're already so far gone nothing can humiliate them now."

"Stick with me on this one, Bolly," Gene began, "if they're so fond of drunken truth or dare then let's give 'em a round."

Alex felt a sense of doom descend.

"Oh Gene, _no,_ not truth or dare," she sighed, "don't you remember what happened last time they played? You sent shares of mouthwash rising in value by several hundred percent!"

"Yes, but this time we're in charge," said Gene, "all we need to do is make Shoebury and Stringer perform something 'orrible as a dare and they'll get so scared of what's coming next they'll have to bugger off."

"Can't you see how pissed they are?" cried Alex, "they'll probably do anything we ask them to!" she paused. "Wait, why did I have a problem with this again…?"

Gene got a couple of beers and handed one to her.

"Time to start plan B," he said and marched through to the lounge.

It seemed Simon and Kim had gone back to their re-enactment of the Christmas story. Simon's jumper was now supposed to be baby Jesus. Worryingly Kim was using Alex's toaster as a sheep.

"Baaaa," said the toaster.

"Listen, you pair of pissed up idiots," Gene began tactfully, "you want a festive Christmas day? Can't be Christmas without some games."

"Oh!" Simon cried, "can we have a drinking game for the Queen's speech? Can we? You have to finish your drink every time she says 'My husband and I…'"

"What do you get for an _annus horribilis?"_ asked Kim.

"Pile cream usually…" Simon suggested and the two of them burst into fits of laughter.

Gene and Alex exchanged a glance. The plan was already not going all that well.

"I was thinking more like yer bloody Truth or Dare," Gene said.

Kim spluttered with laughter and hissed to Simon not very discretely,

"_Oooh, he wants a re-enactment of last time!"_

Gene started to fume.

"If there is _one_ dare that is _banned_ from this game it is anything that involves Shoebury's kissing lips!" he barked.

"If we have to do this can we just get on with it?" sighed Alex.

Gene nodded.

_Let the humiliation begin, _he thought to himself.

"You're up first, Shoebury, since you seemed to enjoy yerself so much last time," he glared at Simon, which sent him blushing awkwardly, "choose: Truth or dare?"

Simon wasn't sure he wanted to play this game again, especially not with Gene, but the alcohol made it difficult to argue.

"Truth," he sighed eventually.

Gene glared at him.

"_Truth?"_ he repeated.

"Yeah."

"Be a man, Simon! Pick a bloody dare!"

"I don't seem to get on very well with dares," Simon mumbled, folding his arms.

Gene scowled. This was not going to plan. He decided he would just have to insult him so much with truth that he'd have to choose a dare next time.

"Alright, Shoebury," he began, "have you ever thought about packing in the spaceships and the little green men and being a normal bloke?"

Simon scowled back.

"No," he said, "I haven't. I like being a freak." He pulled a face. "Your turn. Truth or dare, Gene?"

Gene decided to set the standard.

"Dare," he said.

Kim's eyes lit up.

"Oh! Oh, I've got one!" she cried.

Gene began to feel a little nervous.

"Hmm?"

Kim pointed to the phone.

"Call up the radio station and request Club Tropicana and tell them how much you love Andrew Ridgeley!"

Gene's face darkened.

"No flaming way am I doing that," he told her.

Alex folded her arms, looking quite amused.

"It's a dare, Gene," she said, "you've got to do it."

"Don't know the number," Gene mumbled.

"Oh, I think I have it somewhere," Alex said, "from that competition a few months ago…" she got to her feet and started rummaging around through a pad beside the phone. "Aha! Here it is!" she handed the number and the telephone to Gene with a smile.

"Thank you, _Bolly,"_ he said stiffly, "thanks _so bloody much."_

He took the phone, dialled the number, quickly pressed the button to hang up and pretended to talk to the DJ.

"Oh, nice try, Gene, you think we didn't see that?" sighed Alex.

Flushing an interesting shade of fuchsia, Gene redialled and this time waited for the DJ to answer. The others could hardly hold back their noises of amusement as he said stiffly,

"_Yes, I want to request Club Tropicana because I love Andrew Ridgeley so much._" He paused. "My name?" an evil look came across his face. "Simon Shoebury!" he said and hung up.

"Gene!" Simon's anger was blatant, "you utter bastard! How can you do that to me?"

"Just following orders," Gene said innocently, pointing at Kim.

"Hey! I never gave you permission to lie about your name!" Kim told him.

"Your turn anyway, Stringer," said gene, "Truth or dare?"

Kim sighed.

"I'll take a truth," she said.

"Bloody chicken," mumbled Gene.

"Oooh! I've got one!" Simon cried with glee. He supped from his can of lager and gave Kim a soppy grin. "Now that Alex has got Scully hair do you _luuuuuurve _her?"

Alex looked up, a little alarmed. She wasn't sure this game was a good idea any more.

"No," Kim said quickly, her eyes skipping to Alex just for a second.

"Why have you gone red then?" Simon poked her.

"It's the reflection from her hair," Kim mumbled and buried herself in her can.

"You're up, Bolly," said Gene, "truth or dare?"

Alex sighed. Either way she would probably regret it.

"Truth," she sighed.

Simon seemed to be the self-appointed truth-asker.

"Ooh, I've got one!" he cried again, like he'd adopted a catchphrase, "Alex, have you ever, _ever_ done it in Gene's Fiat?"

Alex froze. She glanced at Gene.

"Gear sticks end up in places that I am not pleased about," she said through gritted teeth.

"Is that a yes or a no?"

"That's a no." Said Alex.

"Sadly," Gene added. "In the Merc, however…."

"The question was not about the Merc," Alex said quickly.

Simon grinned drunkenly.

"We'll remember that for next time!" he said.

Gene turned to Simon.

"Right, your turn. Truth or dare?"

"Truth," said Simon.

Gene gave a sigh of frustration.

"_Again?"_

"It's a game of choice!" Simon pointed out.

Gene glowered. _Alright,_ he thought, he'd just have to make this one _really_ humiliating.

"So talk us through what was going through yer mind when your manhood decided to create a camping expedition in your trousers."

He folded his arms, looking pretty damn smug with himself and stared at Simon, awaiting the reaction.

Simon stared back. He swallowed. The drink had taken away his filter. There was nothing to stop him.

"That I was lonely and longed so much for someone to touch me," his voice said quietly.

Gene's face froze, then fell as Simon garnered nothing but sympathetic hugs and comments from Alex and Kim who started fawning over him like a little lost dog.

"_Oh Simon…"_

"_You poor thing…"_

"_You must miss Robin so much…"_

_"It must be so hard being apart…"_

"_You must get so lonely sometimes…"_

"_You must miss the warmth and the love…"_

"_Is there anything we can do…?"_

Gene folded his arms. This was backfiring in a major way.

"So," he said loudly, "_my_ turn. And I'll take a dare. I'm not scared."

Kim and Alex stopped fawning over Simon and turned back to Gene. There was a moment of silent thought then Alex handed Gene the phone and the pad again and said,

"Call the radio station back, request _Last Christmas_, tell them you agree with the last caller's thoughts on Andrew Ridgeley and give them your real name."

Gene scowled. He was really starting to regret this now.

"Bloody Ridgeley," he mumbled.

Kim looked at Simon as Gene made the call. Gene's truth question had set him off a little. Suddenly a sense of sobriety had come over him and a very sad look had appeared on his face. He'd become s fixated on trying to make his lack of Christmas cheer up to Kim that he'd buried his own reasons for wanting to avoid Christmas. There was a very large Robin-shaped hole in this Christmas day.

"Are you alright?" she asked quietly.

Simon nodded.

"Fine," he whispered. It wasn't part of the game so he didn't have to tell the truth.

"…_and I love Andrew Ridgeley so much that I really, really want to hear Last Christmas,"_ Gene concluded as he put down the phone and shuddered violently from the abhorrent words he'd spoken .

"There," smiled Alex, "don't you feel better for that?"

"Better like I want to stick me head down the bog," Gene mumbled.

Alex turned to Kim.

"Your turn," she said, "Truth or dare?"

Kim sighed. Truth didn't go very well last time.

"Dare," she sighed.

"Oh! Oh!" Simon put up his hand and hopped about like a kid raising his hand in class to go to the toilet, "I've got one! You've got to kiss Alex. On the lips!"

Kim's face was a picture of horror.

"Is this supposed to get me back for –"

"If you can't take it, don't dish it," Simon folded his arms smugly.

Alex cleared her throat awkwardly.

"Can I just say that as this is not my dare I am an unwilling participant in any snogging which may or may not occur as a result of this?" she began.

"And what about Gene's rule?" said Kim, "no kissing!"

"That was only banning _me_ from kissing," Simon pointed out.

"That is true," Gene raised an eyebrow, far more interested in the outcome of this dare than he thought it was safe to let on in front of Alex.

"Well I'm not doing it," Kim folded her arms.

"Then kiss Gene," said Simon.

Kim's stomach turned.

"Yuck!" she cried, then glanced at Gene with a panicked look in her eyes. "Uh, no offence… it's just you're not my type…" she coughed.

"What's Jimbo got that I haven't?" demanded Gene.

"Gas and air," said Kim.

Gene hesitated.

"Good answer."

"You still think she's got a fixation on your arse," Simon laughed, pointing at Gene, "don't you?"

"I do not and have never had a fixation on his or anyone else's arse!" cried Kim, "you're the one who kept coming up with dares about arses!"

"Except for this one," said Simon, "which is just making you _act_ like an arse!"

"Excuse me?" Kim cried. She got to her feet looking fairly pissed off and on the verge of committing Simoncide.

"Well you were the one who made me kiss Gene but yet you won't take the exact same dare with someone else!" cried Simon.

"Oh for pity's sake," Alex couldn't take any more arguing. She grabbed Kim by her top, pulled her over, planted one full-on kiss on her lips and pushed her back into the couch again. "There. Now she's done her dare. Can we move on?"

A very shocked Kim glanced from Alex to Simon. She could still taste Alex's lipstick.

"Did… Did that just happen?" she asked.

"Where's me cushion?" Gene mumbled.

"Right," Alex pushed her hair back, a little flustered, cleared her throat and tried to cool her glowing cheeks. "Now it's my turn. And I pick truth."

Kim was still in a state of shock.

"OK, I have a question," she said, "how was it for you?"

"Alex cleared her throat.

"It was _fine," _she coughed, "Simon? Your turn again."

Simon sighed.

"I suppose I'd better take a dare this time," he said.

Finally Gene's eyes lit up and he leaned forward a little. He linked his fingers and cracked his knuckles.

"A dare," he repeated. A smirk formed in his face. There was only one way to teach Simon a lesson. One way to make him feel as mortified as Gene felt after _that_ kiss. He cleared his throat. "So, Shoebury, I think there's only one dare fitting. Since everyone else has played tonsil tennis except you two you've got to wrap yer lips round Stringer's!"

The silence that fell was earthshattering. The look of devastation on Simon's face was too.

"I can't do that!" he cried.

"Neither can I!" cried Kim.

"Why not?" Gene looked smug, "it's a dare so you _have_ to do it."

"But that would be like kissing my brother," Kim said. She looked at Simon, "you're like the brother I never had."

Simon's look of horror faded to one of sheer emotion.

"That's such a nice thing to say, Kim," he said, "you're like my little sister too."

"Aw, that's so lovely," Alex was looking on a little teary-eyed and Gene started to get angry. _What happened to Shoebury Humiliation_? Everything he tried just ended up with a lot of sympathy on Simon's side.

"OK, I'll give my _big brother_ a kiss just so you can say you've done your dare," said Kim and gave Simon the quickest, most chaste peck on the lips that Gene had ever seen.

"_No!"_ he demanded, "I am expecting _tongues!"_

"You didn't say tongues," Simon pointed out.

"_Bollocks."_

Simon folded his arms.

"Your turn, Gene. Truth or dare?"

"Da- _Truth_," Gene changed his mind, sensing a third call to the radio station in the offing, "but I'm warning you, any questions about Andrew Ridgeley and my answers will not be allowed before the nine o'clock watershed!"

"No, no Ridgeley questions," sighed Simon. He paused. "Alright, have you ever cheated on someone?"

Gene almost choked on his beer.

"It's alright," said Kim, "he's obsessed with this subject. He asked me the same thing."

Gene's eyes flickered to Alex.

"I'd never cheat on Alex," he said honestly.

"Too right, she'd kick your arse," said Kim.

Alex looked at Gene.

"I would, you know."

Gene gulped. He knew that.

"No. I'd never cheat on Bolly."

"I didn't mean Alex," said Simon, "you were married before weren't you?"

Gene gave a deep sigh. This game was the _great_ idea that just kept on giving, wasn't it?

"Yes, I was," he said. He paused. He hoped someone would say something to come to his rescue but no one spoke. Alex was looking at him cautiously. He didn't even like to talk about his marriage with_ her_. As far as he was concerned it was in the past and a whole lifetime away. "Got married too young. Wasn't me greatest decision. She didn't understand that I was married to the job too. Me and Bols…" he sighed, "we have that in common."

"Amongst other things," Alex said quietly with a little smile."

Gene looked down and drank some beer.

"But, yes," he looked reluctant to continue but did so anyway, "I did cheat. And no, I'm not proud of it. And it was only one time. Things had already been going down the kharzi for years," He drank again. He needed a moment. It wasn't something he had thought about in such a long time. "I'd been talking big about stuff for years. There were times I could've but was too pissed to do a thing. There were times I _would've_ but got a slap in the face for me troubles. And when it came down to it," he shook his head slightly, "I'm not a bastard."

Simon stared on, his interest held. He'd forgotten this was just a game now. He rarely caught insights into Gene's past. He had been incredibly evasive through all his Sam Tyler questioning. He'd thought anything more personal than that would be a definite no-go.

"So what was different this one time?" he asked.

Gene didn't know. He really didn't.

"Maybe it was a full moon?" he said sarcastically. He sighed. Even Alex was staring at him now. It was maybe the one thing he hadn't told her. "Load of pissed up birds on a night out. Drunk and disorderly. One of them couldn't hold it, gave a great big golden shower to a tramp in the street. Picked the lot of them up. One of them was a bit more sober than the others, couldn't charge her with something she hadn't done so we let her go. She was left with nowhere to stay, up in the north for the night and all her nearest and dearest were banged up. Felt sorry for the girl. It was give her a bed for the night or lock 'er up with the others. She'd not been pissing on any tramps so I didn't think that was fair."

Gene had a captive audience.

"And you slept with her?" Simon asked.

"No, we stayed up all night playing Cluedo," snapped Gene, "'_course_ I bloody slept with her!"

"Where was your wife?" Alex's voice was quiet and Gene hoped there wouldn't be consequences to this conversation later.

"Been arguing," he said, "she didn't like being the third wheel in me marriage to the force. Thought she'd teach me a lesson, stay away for a few nights." Gene shook his head and looked down in shame. "Tit for tat. Didn't solve anything." he drank some more beer, finished his can and sat it on the table. "Don't know who felt worse in the morning, me or her. She 'ad a ring on. Didn't see it the night before or I wouldn't have. Didn't want some bugger turning up on me doorstep looking for the man who'd given his missus a rogering." He shook his head. "Saw her to the coach station, sent her on her way, never saw or heard from her again." He exhaled loudly. "But that's when I knew me marriage wasn't going to last. Until then, thought we could make it work."

Alex was very quiet. She drank in silence for a few moments. She didn't feel threatened at all or worried that he'd do the same to her, but there was one thing making her feel awkward.

"Why did you never tell me about this before?"

Gene shook his head.

"It was eighteen years ago, Bols. Not thought about it in a very, very long time," he said, "took a clean slate when I moved down here. Never looked back. Or tried not to, anyway."

Kim felt awkward. Everyone was staring at Gene and she could imagine how that felt.

"Um," she began quietly, "It's… it's probably my turn again. I think, anyway. I… I pick truth."

It took a few moments before anyone could drag their thoughts away from Gene and his act of infidelity to ask Kim a question. Finally Gene looked at her. He took a deep breath.

"Alright, Stringer," he said, "I've got one for you."

Kim nodded.

"Go ahead.

Gene hesitated.

"What do you know about the stain on the back seat of my car?"

Kim froze.

"Uh… pardon?" she said innocently.

"My car. Backseat. Nasty stain." He paused. "only you sounded like you had some information earlier?"

Kim gave a nervous laugh and gulped so loudly that Gene was sure to have heard.

"I just… just noticed it, that's all," she said nervously.

"Is that right?"

"Uh-huh."

Gene narrowed his eyes.

"Might I remind you this is _truth_ or dare, Stringer?" he barked.

Simon started giggling.

"This is one truth you might not want to know," he said.

Gene's glare on Kim increased.

"Is that _right?"_

Simon laughed as Kim shuffled uncomfortably.

"Gene! Gene!" he hissed. As Gene's eyes turned to him he gave a mime of the cause of the stain, first of all using his fingers in circles to demonstrate Keats's glasses, then a single finger going into a 'hole' to demonstrate the act.

"Simon!" Kim's outrage was all over her face.

"Oh _really?"_ Gene's glare turned back to Kim, "so I've got Jimbo's _love juice_ all over me backseat have I?"

Kim looked down, her face scarlet and her stomach churning at the memory.

"I didn't like you at the time," she was quick to point out, although that didn't exactly enhance her case.

"In what version of reality is that supposed to make me feel better?" Gene demanded.

"I'm already going to clean your bloody car!" cried Kim, "I don't know what else I can do!"

"Go back in time and erase it from history?" Gene suggested.

"Believe me, I would if I could," snapped Kim.

Alex could see her face darkening at the memory of Keats and knew this wasn't something to dwell on.

"Let's move on Gene," she whispered, "please."

Gene looked at Alex, the thought of Keats getting to her deeply. He closed his eyes for a moment. That was the last thing he should be dwelling on. He looked at the expression on Kim's face. It was the same one Alex wore every time she thought about that evil man. He suspected he was looking at the wrong part of the situation.

_Bloody car pride._

"Just make sure you use disinfectant," he shuddered.

Simon felt guilty for his part in the big reveal. He supposed he needed to find the right tone for this game. He cleared his throat.

"Alex? Truth or dare?"

Alex sighed. She'd tired of this already.

"I'll just take truth," she said quietly.

"I've got a question for you," said Kim, trying to forget about Keats. She turned to Alex. "Do you have any porn?"

Alex's mind went back to Kim's extraordinary porn collection in 2011. She gave her a smirk.

"No," she said, "but I know a girl who has."

Her pointed look was wasted on Kim whose 2003 porn collection was nominal.

"OK," she said, a little confused.

Alex took a deep breath and sighed, then slowly got to her feet.

"Well," she began, "as much _fun_ as this has been… and pointless too," she said pointedly to Gene who had failed to scare Simon and Kim away, "the Christmas dinner is almost ready." She gave a deep sigh. "I suppose you are staying?" she looked at Simon and Kim in the hope they may have decided to leave them in piece but their stomachs were empty and the turkey smelt good – nothing was going to shift them it seemed.

"Oh yes!" Kim said excitedly, "can't wait!"

Alex sighed.

"Fine," she said, before adding sweetly, "Gene, can I see you in the kitchen please?"

Gene tried and failed to think of any excuses not to go in the kitchen. Reluctantly he stood up, put on a squeaky voice and said,

"_Coming, schnookums,"_

"Was that Gene's attempt at falsetto?" asked Kim.

"I think this is where his little infidelity secret is going to come back and bite him on the bottom," Simon hooted in a sing-song voice.

~xXx~

By the time Gene got to the kitchen Alex was already tapping her foot impatiently. She was fed up, frustrated and in need of some alone time with Gene. There were also serious discussions to be had, but she wasn't ready for those just yet. She looked at his sheepish expression.

"So," she began, "five hours have now passed since I was promised that you would be delving into my stockings. Five hours and the most action I've had was kissing Kim!"

"Can I just point out how professionally you handled that dare…" Gene began but Alex was not in the mood.

"Now, so far I have seen you wasting good booze down their throats. I've seen your attempts at humiliating Simon result in garnering him sympathy. I've seen you getting your own bloody trouser tent -" he opened his mouth to reply but Alex cut him off with a finger wagging in his face, "_don't_ try to tell me you didn't, I know that 'cushion' move. And I've seen our perfect Christmas sliding away before my eyes. Now, you've filled their blood with alcohol and you've tried the humiliation route. What next, Gene?"

Gene cleared his throat.

"I suppose we could poison the potatoes," he suggested hopefully.

"Or _you_ could try telling them to go home," said Alex.

"I can't do that!" cried Gene, "look at them – waifs and strays. I can't throw them out."

"That describes your whole station," Alex pointed out, "waifs and strays. They all find you."

Gene looked at her.

"Yes," he said, "_You _did, didn't _you?"_

Alex narrowed her eyes.

"I was not a waif or stray," she said, "I just happened to be on my own in a very strange world."

Gene called to mind a conversation he'd shared with Kim, on a stake out not that many nights ago.

"_I've got a station full of non-conformists,"_ he'd said.

It was true. He had.

"Come on, Gene," Alex sighed, "you invited them in. It's not like they're kids, they've had their morning here, they need to understand that _we_ need time alone. If they were with their partners they'd be wanting the same. Just because they haven't got a bloody tree doesn't mean they can spend the whole day here!"

Gene sighed. She was right and he knew it but something was stopping him from just throwing them out on their backsides, and that wasn't like Gene.

What was the reason? Could it be… could it be that illusive thing known as Christmas spirit?

_Better bloody not be_, he thought to himself.

He started helping Alex with the various Christmas foods and told her,

"Alright, plan C: It's called _Operation Sprout."_

Alex closed her eyes and gave a deep sigh.

"I think I can see where you're going with this one," she said.

"We give 'em, a load of sprouts," Gene continued, "and they'll either run away screaming in horror or we can throw them out when they chuck."

Alex closed her eyes.

"Wouldn't it be quicker and easier to tell them to leave?" she said, "Not to mention less messy."

But Gene wasn't having it.

"Sprouts it is," he said, and continued to serve up.

~xXx~

"These sprouts are excellent!" Simon cried, munching away.

Alex and Gene exchanged a glance.

"They are?" Alex asked through gritted teeth while Gene slapped his forehead.

The alcohol had managed to both rile up Simon's appetite while numbing his taste buds to the point where anything tasted good. He didn't seem to care that there were ten sprouts on his plate versus one slice of turkey and two roast potatoes. He was just glad to have some food in his stomach.

"These are OK!" Kim agreed, tucking in too.

Alex closed her eyes and sighed. Operation Sprout had been doomed to failure from the word go.

"Good," she said crossly, "I'm glad you like them."

The rest of the meal passed in near silence except for the occasional burp, some mutterings about sprouts and an _'Ow!'_ from Gene when Alex kicked him in the leg to try to suggest an illicit bathroom liaison but before she could mouth anything to him a very pissed Simon started hopping around and crying _'I need a wee!' _which put paid to that thought.

As Alex cleared the plates away she practically reached bursting point. There were edible undies under the tree and she was hungry for desert.

When Gene walked into the kitchen she grabbed him, pulled him to the side of the room and hissed,

"Get rid of them._ Now._"

"They've only just finished their sprouts," said Gene, "can't throw them out now. We should be grateful we didn't have to eat them!"

"How can I make this any clearer?" Gene found a knee sliding between his legs and rising up and down, "You get rid of Pinky and Perky and there will be Mrs Claus in the bedroom wearing edible knickers in five seconds flat. You fail to rid us of our adopted _children_ and there will be no knickers for pudding. Understand?"

Gene swallowed. It was going to prove fairly difficult to re-enter the lounge for the next few minutes.

"Got a plan," he said.

"No plans, Gene," Alex told him, "just get them out of this flat!"

"The Queen's speech is coming on," Gene told her, "Shoebury hates it. Watch him run a mile when we put it on."

He began to walk back to the lounge but stopped at the last minute, hesitated, grabbed a six pack of beers and used it to hide his embarrassment before he resumed his journey. He turned his back to Simon and Kim, set the beers down and said loudly,

"Oh great! Time for the queen's speech!"

Simon and Kim glanced around.

"Oh brilliant!" cried Kim.

"And you brought in beers for our drinking game!" Simon said gratefully, "Thank you!"

From out in the kitchen Gene heard a howl of despair.

Mrs Claus was not going to be _getting any_ yet.


	102. Chapter 61, 1995: Lontano

_**A/N: Second chapter tonight!**_

**Chapter Sixty One**

"…_It is your good sense and good will which have achieved so much. It must not and will not go to waste. May there be still happier Christmases to come, for you and your children. You deserve the best of them. Happy Christmas and God bless you all."_

Simon and Kim put down their cans, hardly able to gasp for breath between the alcohol and the fizz of the beer.

"Oh god, I have never enjoyed a speech like that in all my life!" Simon barely forced his words out.

"Nice idea to take a sip every time she mentioned war, I could hardly breathe for the first minute!" said Kim.

Gene glanced at Alex who was looking Annoyed, partly at Simon and Kim still being there and partly at not joining in the drinking game. It had actually looked like fun.

Simon burped so loudly he worried he would cause an earth tremor and rubbed his spinning head. Oh why had he spent his life avoiding beer? Beer did good things to his mind. It blocked out all those things he tried hard to forget.

He stared at the TV as the Queen disappeared and adverts for Boxing Day shows came on in their place. He saw Kim leaning back with one hand over her forehead and the other over her stomach.

"Oh god, I need a piss," she moaned.

"Then for goodness sake, go to the bathroom, don't do it on my couch!" Alex panicked.

A very, _very_ inebriated Kim got slowly to her feet and staggered to the bathroom. She felt awash with lager and the room was turning a very pretty rainbow colour.

Simon watched her go, certain he could see her beer-o-meter going into overload then looked back at the TV. There on the screen, where the adverts for the next day's programming had been just a second before, was now a shot of a table at which three people sat, digging into a meal. Pizza, it seemed to be. The birds-eye view was a little awkward and it was hard for Simon to pick out any details, especially since the TV seemed to have lost the sound, but as he watched a sense of familiarity overcame him.

Involuntarily he gave a little gasp and his hand covered his mouth. That was Robin's lounge… _Robin's lounge._ He hadn't recognised it at first – he wasn't used to seeing the table out and unfolded for a start and more than that it was the last thing he expected to see on Alex's television set in the middle of Christmas day.

His eyes darted to Alex and Gene. Neither reacted, they merely stared at the screen as though they were watching something completely different.

_Perhaps they are,_ Simon thought silently.

As he watched the angle of the view changed a little and he could make out faces now. One was Robin – most definitely Robin; his dark hair flopping over one eye like always, his familiar smile, so full of life. It made Simon's heart beat at double time and he felt his mouth drop open in shock. He slowly rose from the sofa and took a step towards the screen. It felt like his body was moving in slow motion. One of the other figures was familiar too. A female _– Kim_; the older Kim he'd seen just days before.

"_Oh my God," _he whispered.

He could hear Gene muttering something about Simon getting too excited by the Eastenders trailer but it barely registered.

The third figure looked familiar too but Simon couldn't place her. Whoever she was, all three of them were sitting there, eating, talking, laughing. A television set was on in the background. Simon could just about make out a lot of adverts of razors being shown. Every now and then one of them, usually Robin or Kim would point to the TV set and say something, then the others would laugh. It felt as though he was intruding on something, watching through a window like a peeping tom.

He watched as Kim spoke but the sound was still mute. She raised her glass and the others followed in a toast. He wasn't the world's best lip reader but he could make out a few words –

'_To absent friends'._

Simon felt his eyes close and his stomach lurch. For a terrible moment he was sure he was going to be sick and he turned on his heels and ran to the kitchen where he stood beside the sink, following in Alex's footsteps just a few hours earlier. When he got there he realised he wasn't going to be sick – it wasn't nausea, it was panic. Terrible, stomach churning, heart wrenching panic brought to his life by the unknown. He took several deep breaths, tried hard to chase those fears away but before they disappeared there were slow footsteps coming towards him and a voice that said,

"Simon?"

He closed his eyes for a moment. He knew Alex was standing there but he didn't know what to say to her. He breathed in again. He couldn't stay silent forever. Slowly he turned around and swallowed.

"Sorry, Alex," he whispered, "felt a bit funny. Must have had too much to drink."

Alex stared at him. He certainly looked off-colour but his face wasn't green, it was pale. As white as a sheet. She stepped a little closer and looked at him seriously.

"I know that look, Simon," she whispered.

"What look?"

"The look of someone who's just seen something from many years away," Alex said quietly, "a message. A flashback. A bleed-through." She hesitated. "But usually… usually that only comes when you're still alive. And I know that you're not." She closed her eyes for a moment. "And you're not the only one. Gene had something too."

Simon's tongue ran nervously across his lips.

"He did?"

Alex nodded.

"On the radio," she said quietly.

Simon hesitated. He started at her.

"I need to know about Robin," he whispered.

A strange sensation caught Alex in her chest. It was the racing of her heart.

"Robin?"

"What happened?" Simon whispered, "I know you saw him. I know you were there with him. I need to know if he's OK,"

Alex felt as though worlds collided in that moment. She swallowed as she tried to work out what to say or to do. She felt a little dizzy as her mind tried to comprehend what Simon had said. She felt as though her decision had been taken from her hands – to tell or not to tell – there was only one decision now. She looked down for a second to draw in both breath and courage.

"I think we should talk about this when you're sober," she whispered.

Simon swallowed.

"Believe me, Alex, what I just saw in there…" he shook his head a little, "it struck me sober as quick as _that…_" he tried to snap his fingers to demonstrate but his hand was shaking too much. He realised how bad his trembles had become and slowly sank to the floor, pulling his hands into his lap so that he wouldn't have to see them shaking.

Alex sank down beside him.

"What did you see, Simon?" she whispered.

"I saw them," he whispered, "in Robin's flat. They were sitting around, eating pizza, watching TV. They made a toast, to," he closed his eyes, "to absent friends."

Alex watched him. It was only as she reached out to put a hand on his shoulder that she realised she was shaking too.

"Who was there?" she whispered.

"Robin," Simon whispered, "and Kim, but she was different. Older, and… her hair was dark, long… there was someone else but I couldn't place her."

Alex swallowed and nodded gently.

"Was it Kelly?" she whispered.

"Kelly?" why did that name sound so familiar? His eyes closed as he recalled the kind and gentle officer who'd helped him after Keats's revenge and the fate that befell her as a result. "Oh god… yes, yes it was. Alex, how…" he looked at her, "How did you know? What _happened_ out there?" he stared at herm, awaiting a response but she swallowed and stayed quiet. "Please, _please_ tell me, is Robin at least alright?"

Alex stared back, then gave a slow nod.

"Yes," she whispered, "Robin's alright." Trickles of relief filled her body as the implications of what Simon had seen dawned upon her. If Simon had seen them all sitting around, toasting, then they had to have been OK – all three of them – safe, alive, well. Her eyes closed and she exhaled. Recalling the memory that had just returned of Kim and the bullet that struck her she realised that she was alright, that she'd made it somehow, and that Robin too was safe after the crash. It was the first time she'd felt complete relief and security about their situation since she had awoken. "Simon, let's take a walk," she said quietly as the sound of the toilet flushing made her very aware that Kim could walk in at any time and overhear something about her future that she most likely never wanted to know.

Simon nodded and got to his feet. He followed Alex back to the lounge and began to pull on his jumper as Alex whispered to Gene,

"Simon and I need to talk. Entertain Kim for a while."

Gene looked at her in horror.

"What d'you mean 'entertain her'? Dance routine? Juggle a couple of chainsaws?"

"Talk to her," said Alex, "tell her Simon wasn't feeling well and needed some air."

Gene glanced at him as he pulled his leather jacket on over the jumper.

"You're not looking that good, Shoebury," he frowned, "that last beer come back to haunt you?"

"No, Robin came back to haunt me," Simon whispered flatly and walked to the door as though on autopilot.

Gene shot Alex a slightly alarmed look and she threw back a sad and anxious one to him.

"We'll talk tonight," she echoed his earlier words and pushed Simon out of the door before Kim could return and decide to join them for a wander.

It wouldn't have been a particularly big issue though as a rather green Kim came back to the lounge and sank down onto the sofa.

"Blimey, Stringer, the colour of yer skin, what was it, one sprout too many? Turning into one now?"

Kim hiccupped and tried to hold back the floodgates.

"I don't think the Queen agreed with me," she said, giving a groan and passing out across the couch.

Gene stared at her. Then he glanced at the clock. He gave a sigh.

"You see?" he said to no one in particular, "I knew that plan would work!" he sighed and scratched his head, "It's just that it took about five and a half hours longer than I anticipated…"


	103. Chapter 62, 1995: Lentissimo

_**A/N: Two chapters a day now right up to the end… which is going to be Sunday! Yes, Sunday Night sees the final two chapters of Whispering. Will I survive or will my fingers drop off before that?**_

**Chapter Sixty Two**

Simon could feel all that alcohol sliding away from his veins as he walked through the cold Christmas day air with Alex beside him. The streets were ghostly quiet, most everyone tucked up at home with their families, arguing about the television and practicing sprout avoidance. The bitter wind blew against his face and he turned away a little to catch his breath. He wasn't sure what to ask, what he wanted to know, what he wanted to say – he just knew that both he and Alex had been avoiding the issue and skirting around things they really should have been telling each other.

They stopped beside a bridge that overlooked a railway track. Leaning against it and peering over at the silent rails, Simon couldn't help but feel that his life was a bit like that. He was stuck in one place and couldn't see a way out. He was going nowhere.

"What year?" he whispered.

"Hmm?" Alex wasn't sure she heard him against the blowing winds.

"What year did you go to?" Simon asked.

Alex looked down.

"I woke up in my other body… my coma body… it was new year's day in two thousand and eleven."

Simon looked down at the track again and nodded slowly.

"When did you leave that year?" he asked.

He heard Alex sigh.

"February. Must have been maybe a week into the month, a little more?"

Simon had so many things that he wanted to ask but wasn't even sure where to begin, or even if he'd want to know the answers. He glanced at Alex. Her expression was sombre.

"There was a memo," he began. His voice trembled as he spoke, "it was only there for a moment. I saw other words printed on a page… then they changed."

"What did it say?" Alex asked quietly.

"It was dated February two thousand and eleven," Simon whispered, the date finally making some sense to him, "it said Robin had been promoted. Chief Inspector."

"Really?" Alex felt her whole face light up with a smile. He really deserved that and she'd been so worried about the implications his time helping her would have for his career. "I thought he would have been sacked, considering."

Simon looked at her in alarm.

"Considering what?" he asked.

Alex bit her lip.

"Considering the nationwide search," she said a little nervously. She knew there would be time to discuss that matter shortly. "Did the memo say anything else?"

Simon nodded.

"Said he was tracking Arthur Layton," he said quietly.

Alex nodded slowly.

"We were chasing him when we crashed," she whispered.

Simon looked at her.

"Who was driving?" he whispered.

"I was."

Simon closed his eyes.

"Robin was in the passenger seat?" he whispered.

"Yes."

Simon felt his stomach clench and his heart began to pound.

"_Fuck."_

Alex looked at him a little alarmed.

"What? Simon, what is it?"

Simon could barely speak. He tried to compose himself and looked her in the eye.

"We crashed too," he whispered, "Me and you. The _other _you. The weird one…" he cringed, "no offense."

"None taken," said Alex, "I know I was an idiot when I first came here. And it sounds like I was a worse one the second time around."

"You had a go at me about my car," Simon frowned, "said it was a penis extension."

Alex bit her lip.

"I'm sure the other bit of me would say sorry if she could," she told him, glad that side of her was too weak to make itself heard now.

Simon looked away. He was deviating from the issue. He knew that. Anything to avoid facing reality.

"When we crashed I looked around to see if you were OK," he said quietly, "I was driving. You were the passenger. But suddenly it wasn't you in the passenger seat any more." He swallowed. "It was Robin."

Alex stared at him.

"Go on," she whispered.

"We looked at each other and he looked as shocked as I was," he whispered, "then I blinked,_ literally _blinked and he was gone. You were back there instead. Alex, I've gone over this in my head time and again. It felt so real. He was there. He was _there._" He shook his head slowly. "Then something happened to me when Gene drove you to hospital. My heart… felt like it seized up. Hospital said I had a panic attack… felt like more than that. There were shocks like someone was trying to restart my heart. Gene said I shot up in the seat, my head hit the roof." He shook his head slowly as he watched Alex staring at him. "I know, I know, it sounds crazy… and then I dreamed, there was a hand… someone reached out to me and wanted me to hold on. Wanted me to pull them in. They begged me to help them, but I couldn't hold on." He hung his head and closed his eyes. "It was Robin. I know it was. He crossed over and something pulled him back. He wanted to stay with me… and I couldn't hold on."

Alex stared at him. She watched a tear fall from his eye and drop to the ground where it froze almost on contact. She bit her lip to hold back tears of her own.

"Maybe it wasn't his time?" she whispered.

"But what if it was?" Simon's voice was laden with emotion, "what if it was and something went wrong? What if he wasn't supposed to be resuscitated? What is he was supposed to come back here with you?"

Alex shook her head slowly. She didn't know what to say.

"I wish I had all the answers, Simon," she whispered, "I really do. But at the moment…. Right now all I'm finding are more questions myself. I've been here for fifteen years and suddenly the rules are changing. Things are happening that I can't understand. All I know is that without Robin I might never have found my way back here, and that he loves you very, very much.

Simon managed to smile, but it was tinged with sadness. He wanted Robin to be able to tell him that much himself. He didn't want to have to send messages through time-travelling go-betweens for the next however many years.

"How come you and Robin ended up the subject of a… nationwide search?" he asked.

Alex swallowed nervously. Her guts churned just thinking about the whole thing.

"There are a lot of gaps, Simon," she whispered, "my memory is coming back in pieces. I was in a mess when I woke up. I didn't remember anything about my old life at all. All I knew was this world; Gene, you, Kim – the people I know here. I didn't remember my daughter, I didn't remember Evan…" her heart sank. "_Evan."_ She only remembered fleeting glimpses of the time on the roof but she remembered enough to feel her heart shatter inside every time she tried to recall it. "Evan… behaved very strangely," she continued, "It was true that I must have been behaving strangely too but he was desperate to keep other people away from me. Especially Robin."

"Why Robin?" Simon asked, not sure he wanted to know the answer. He and Robin had spent much time in the company of Evan, and Molly too. He had always seemed like such a kind man.

"Evan was particularly keen to keep away anyone who was on the force," Alex said quietly, "anyone who might have had access to information about my original shooting. He knew Robin had read my files."

"I don't understand why?"

"Because," Alex's voice grew taught, "Evan had a secret. A few of them, actually." She looked him in the eye. "He was being blackmailed by Layton. And when he wouldn't pay up, Layton put a bullet in my head."

Simon could hardly take this information in. After all that Evan had done, all the dinner parties, the legal advice, the free beard magazines – it seemed as though Simon had befriended a stranger.

"God, Alex," he whispered, "I'm so sorry." He looked at her. "I still don't understand how you ended up in such a strange situation though."

"Evan was going to have me sectioned," she said quietly, "to him, I must have sounded crazy. I thought I'd skipped fifteen years. I ran away and Robin was the only familiar person. He took me in and did everything right. Kept me safe, helped me find everything I needed to know, and somehow… _somehow_ helped me home." She managed to smile. "And you were right, Simon. His cooking is amazing."

Simon felt a real smile cross his face and he looked downwards. He blushed as he thought about Robin. Just remembering him brought a wealth of emotions to the surface.

"I'd kill for some of Robin's cooking right now," Simon whispered.

"We tracked down Kim," Alex continued, "we knew she went through it all now… here, in nineteen ninety five, and that she would be the one person who'd know if I made it home, or _how_… how I made it home." She sighed. "Kim had a lot of memory gaps but she gave me hope." Her hand strayed to her stomach as she thought about the tattoo Kim had etched upon her skin in 2011. It made her smile. She hadn't told Gene yet, but she would. "Kim's very different, Simon. She's been through a lot. But she's safe from Keats. He never found her. Everything you told her to do, she does – and she's safe."

Simon closed his eyes and exhaled in relief.

"Thank god," he breathed. He truly thought of her like a sister. She meant so much to him and the knowledge that Keats was never able to find her filled him with warmth.

"She has a wife," Alex told him, "two kids. Whole new career." She looked a little anxious. "But Simon, you mustn't tell her any of this. I know your lips flap more than a pair of curtains…"

"Hey!" frowned Simon.

"But this is really important," Alex told him urgently. "Let her live her life and discover these things for herself. I know I would hate to know what was ahead. Life should be a revelation as it arrives. Don't you think?"

Simon wasn't sure. But then, with the amount of alcohol in his system he wasn't sure of many things.

"Alright," he said quietly, "I'll keep it quiet."

Alex nodded and smiled a little.

"Good," she whispered. She looked at Simon's face as it grew sad and distant again. "Was there anything else you wanted to ask me?" she whispered.

Simon nodded slowly.

"Does he miss me?" he whispered.

"Oh, Simon," Alex sighed deeply, "every other sentence out of his mouth was about you. He would do anything to be with you again. But," she was quick to add, "he knows what would happen if he tried to get here on purpose. He would never do that. He wouldn't give Keats the satisfaction."

"How's he coping?" Simon asked quietly.

Alex took a deep breath. It wasn't an easy question to answer.

"Robin's got a lot to deal with," she said quietly, "but he'd surviving. He's coping better than you'd think."

Simon looked down.

"It looked like it, too," he whispered.

Alex frowned.

"What do you mean?" she asked.

Simon clutched the side of the bridge. He felt his eyes filling with tears.

"I see glimpses of him," he whispered, "like on the TV. Heard him on the radio. Saw him in the tattoo studio. Laughing, joking. Happy."

Alex looked at him sadly.

"There are levels of happiness," she told him quietly, "just because he might be laughing at something funny, that doesn't mean a moment later he won't be crying because he can't share it with you."

Simon looked down. That made sense.

"I suppose," he whispered.

Alex hesitated.

"What were you doing in a tattoo studio anyway?" she asked.

"What was _Robin_ doing in one?" Simon countered.

"What?"

"I saw him being tattooed," Simon shook his head slowly. He couldn't equate that image to the Robin he knew, "it was Kim who was tattooing him."

Something about the thought of that made Alex smile. She remembered Robin walking in on her washing her tattoo the morning after Kim had done it for her.

"I hope he's keeping it moisturised and clean," she said.

Simon gave a little laugh.

"You're obsessed," he said.

"Just concerned about tattoo maintenance," Alex told him.

Simon felt a heaviness in his chest.

"He's moving on," he said quietly.

"You didn't want him to sit around moping, I know that," Alex told him, "you can't have it both ways. He's not _moving on_, he's making the best of it. And Simon…" she sighed and put her hand over his, "I know it's hard, but that's what _you_ have to do too."

"What do you mean?" Simon asked.

Alex looked at him sadly.

"Look at you, Simon," she said quietly, "the drinking, the jumper, the weird change of image…"

"Just because I got a haircut and a leather jacket? What about Robin getting a tattoo?"

"I don't know what Robin's reason is for getting a tattoo," Alex said quietly, "but I know what mine was." She noticed Simon looking at her strangely. "To remember. To mark something of so much importance to me. "

"You have a tattoo?"

"_Had._ My other body." She paused. "Kim did it for me."

"Kim's a…" Simon closed his eyes. "She becomes a tattooist," he breathed, things finally slotting into place.

"Yes," Alex nodded quietly.

Simon looked at her.

"So why do you think _Robin_ had a tattoo?" he asked.

"Maybe because," Alex said quietly, "he's survived. He's been through so much and he's still standing. He wants to remember that. I would bet that's the reason." She paused. "But _you_… you're trying to be someone else. Robin's not doing that. He's just learning to be himself."

"Without me there?"

Alex hesitated.

"Maybe he needed to grow alone," she whispered.

Simon stared at the track ahead of him.

"I always thought I was the strong one," he said.

Alex let out her breath.

"_He_ always thought you were, too."

"Looks like we were both wrong."

Alex looked at him seriously.

"Be proud of him, Simon. He's doing well."

Simon looked back at Alex.

"I'm really glad he was there to help you," He said quietly.

Alex nodded.

"I felt safe with him," she said quietly, "it was a very strange, very daunting time but we got through it. All of us together. Me and Robin, Kim, Kelly." She thought about Gene's earlier words and gave a smile. "a bunch of waifs and strays, we were."

Simon could feel his head starting to throb. He might have felt quite sober suddenly but the alcohol was still taking it out on his system. He started to dread the hangover that was coming his way.

"What happened at the end?" Simon asked, "how did you get home?"

Alex chewed on her lip. She cursed herself for it. _Must stop doing that._ She was going to have half her lipstick on her teeth. The other half, she'd already left on Kim.

"We crashed," she said quietly, "chasing Layton. I remember his car went crazy. I remember… it was like everything moved so slowly. His car was spinning and although I put the brakes on he struck us… don't really remember anything after that." She sighed. "Sorry, Simon." She looked at him. "How… how did I get back here?"

Simon shook his head.

"I wish I knew for sure," he whispered, "it sounds like we might as well have been leading the same life. We crashed chasing Keats. You were unconscious when I dragged you from the car… well, _she_ was," Simon still couldn't work out how to phrase that, "and I felt her… felt her _lifting,"_ he hung his head. "Oh god, I hate it so much, Alex. Only the second time, but I hate it with every bone of my body."

Alex looked at him sympathetically.

"It takes some time, Simon," she said, "you'll get used to it."

"I thought I'd done something terrible," he whispered, "I thought that I'd killed you. I thought that was it. Then bloody Gene turns up like some kind of all-seeing, boot-wearing deity and carried you away. I have no idea what happened next, all I know is he started walking back to the car a few minutes later and you were breathing again."

Alex closed her eyes and tried to take it all in. She knew how Gene found his way there. She wasn't sure Simon was ready to know about Gene's very own _sooper-dooper _message from the future though, he was having enough trouble with his own.

"Thank you," she said.

"For what?"

"Your part in getting me home."

"All I did was set her free," Simon said, a little confused.

"If you hadn't then where would I have gone?" Alex pointed out, "I needed a body to come back to. Anything could have happened," she tried to joke, "imagine me waking up in Keats's body! That would have been a fine one to explain to Gene, wouldn't it?"

Finally Simon genuinely laughed.

"I can't see gene snuggling up to Keats and buying him edible knickers," he said. He looked at Alex a little more seriously. "Was there anything else _you_ wanted to ask _me?"_

_A_lex hesitated. There was, but she wasn't sure she wanted to know the answer.

"How did Gene cope while I was away?" she asked him, "I mean _really _cope?"

Simon gave a deep sigh. He shook his head a little.

"Alex," he began quietly, "I won't lie to you. Without you he was in bits. You could see it on his face. Even breathing was hard. But he knew he was going to bring you home. He never gave up."

Alex's smile was strained. She'd been right – she really didn't want to know.

"Thanks," she said quietly. She swallowed and took a deep breath before she began awkwardly. "There's one other thing."

"Hmm?"

Alex hesitated.

"It's a little personal," she said.

"If it's about the graffiti," he began, "it's not _really _that big. Someone really pushed the limits of artistic licence."

"No, it's not about that," she blinked slowly, not sure how to raise the subject or even whether she should. "Simon, do you have feelings," she hesitated, "for Gene?"

The look of absolute horror and mortification on Simon's face made her want to backtrack and take away the question but it was too late now. She wished her curiosity hadn't got the better of her and she'd kept quiet.

"Oh God, why the hell d'you ask that?" Simon turned around and sank to the frozen ground. His cheeks were pink, but that could have been from the icy air. Alex slowly crouched beside him and leaned against the side of the bridge.

"I'm sorry," she said quietly, "I didn't mean to make you feel awkward."

"Gene's not my type anyway," Simon mumbled.

"Trouser tents, kissing dares, telling him you loved him when you were pissed out of your head the other night…" Alex counted them off on her fingers.

"Oh god, isn't this bad _enough?"_ cried Simon, "I know you're fond of lists but please, _please_ don't make one about this!"

Alex let her breath out slowly. She wasn't sure where to take the conversation from there.

"I'm not calling you out for a _duel_," she tried to joke, "I'm not getting defensive. Rivals for his affections." She thought humour was the way to go but it looked like she was making it worse. "I just wanted to know because I didn't want to put my foot in it." She sighed, "which it seems I already have."

"I'm just lonely, that's all," Simon's voice was barely audible as he looked away.

"I'm sorry," she said, "I shouldn't have asked. But it's OK."

Simon shook his head.

"It's bloody not, you know," he sighed.

"What do you mean?"

"I have a crush on my homophobic bloody boss and just got called out by his fiancé," Simon said as he got to his feet, "I think I'm going to go and write my letter of resignation now."

Alex growled in frustration. She stood up and trotted after him until she reached his side.

"Don't be so silly, Simon," she said, "you're not going anywhere. You know that." She stopped him from walking and tried to look him in the eye although he couldn't meet her stare. "You're a long way from home and Gene makes you feel safe. I know that feeling well. _That's_ what you're feeling, Simon."

Simon's eyes met her stare just for a second. He nodded a little.

"Yeah, he does." He felt his eyes misting over. "I always felt so much safer when I was with Robin. I've been feeling out of my depth here. Every day scares me."

Alex gave a little sigh.

"I never meant to embarrass you Simon," she said, "I just wanted to get it out in the open because there are enough white elephants hanging around at the moment and I didn't want another one." she stepped away a little. "I'll never mention it again."

Simon hesitated.

"Please don't tell Gene?" he asked.

Alex shook her head.

"Course not," she said quietly.

Simon tried to play with his hair but found there was hardly any there. _Damn makeover._

"I don't want things to be awkward," he said quietly.

"They won't be," said Alex.

Simon looked away.

"And I don't want you to think I've forgotten about Robin," he said quietly.

"Of course you haven't."

"I just miss him so much, I needed –" he trailed away. He wasn't sure how to finish that.

"Your feelings transferred to someone who made you feel safe the way Robin did," she said.

Simon stopped. Everything stopped. For the first time, things started to make a little sense.

"Yeah."

Alex gave him a tiny smile.

"Yeah," she echoed his word. She looked down for just a moment and drew in her breath. Simon was looking at her strangely. "Come on," she said quietly, "we'd better get back. Make sure Gene's not giving Kim the third degree about the stain on his back seat."

Simon gave her a thin smile.

"OK," he said quietly.

As they walked back to his flat he felt everything churning around in his mind. Things he'd seen. Things he'd heard. The things Alex had said. Suddenly Christmas had turned into a day of revelations and emotional turmoil, with a dollop of humiliation on the side.

"_Zig and bloody Zag have a hell of a lot to answer for,"_ he mumbled.


	104. Chapter 63, 1995: Scherzo

_**A/N: Second chapter tonight!**_

**Chapter Sixty Three**

As Alex opened the front door and stepped inside she found things were rather quieter than she was expecting. She tiptoed through to the lounge and found Kim fast asleep and snoring, sprawled across the couch, while Gene sat triumphantly in a chair.

"Told you it would work," he said.

Simon followed her a little dejectedly through. He didn't dare meet Gene's gaze.

"Gene," Alex said quietly, "come and help me make some coffees. Strong black ones."

Gene glanced at Simon's morbid expression and rolled his eyes.

"Full of festive cheer," he mumbled and got to his feet.

As he followed her to the kitchen Simon rid himself of the jacket and jumper, then took his place in the chair. A part of him worried that Alex was going to tell Gene about his crush. A part of him almost wanted her to. He was fed up of torturing himself over it. But, no, he trusted her to keep her word.

He closed his eyes as he leaned back. He couldn't even begin to process all that Alex had told him. For so long he'd thought about poor Robin out there on his own, with no one to turn to and no one to comfort him. Now it seemed that he'd had the situation marked out back to front. He was learning he wasn't quite the man he thought he was and Robin has been a far greater source of strength than he'd ever given him credit for. He felt his chest grow tight and his eyes screwed up as a tear threatened to escape. It was more than he could take.

~xXx~

"What's wrong with Scrooge?" Gene demanded.

Alex switched on the kettle and waited for it to begin whistling before she said,

"That talk we're going to have. I think it's going to be a long one."

Gene sighed and howled.

"What a brilliant end to a perfect Christmas," he cried, "Spending Christmas day with the Fenchurch branch of the LGBT society and Christmas Evening talking about the finer points of metaphysics."

"I'm serious, Gene," she looked at him grimly, "he's getting bleed-throughs. He's seeing things. Robin and Kim, in two thousand and eleven."

Gene stared at her. He didn't know what to say and there were no words that would stop his stomach from clenching into a fist at the thought of the implications.

"You been doing headstands?" he asked, seemingly from nowhere.

Alex frowned.

"You want to see my knickers?"

"Something's turning me world upside down," he explained.

Alex nodded slowly. She'd run out of words to say.

"We'll talk tonight." It wasn't the first time they'd said that. Not by a longshot.

They finished making the coffees and carried them through but Simon had joined Kim in the land of nod, his head back, mouth lolling open a little and a gentle snore coming from him.

"Bless 'em," Gene scowled, "they've over excited themselves."

"Well what are we going to do with them now?" cried Alex, plonking the drinks down hard on the table. They didn't stir.

"Might this be a good time to open yer present…?" Gene asked hopefully.

"Gene, I'm not doing _anything_ while the two sleeping beauties are laying out here," she said, "either they'll feel a sudden need to purge themselves and send recycled sprouts all over my lounge, or they'll be awoken by the sound of bedsprings and get an eyeful."

Gene stared at them. Out for the count, like a couple of overgrown babies.

"Right, got a plan."

"Oh _no_, Gene," Alex put her hand to her forehead, "not another plan."

"This one doesn't involve sprouts," he assured her.

Alex eyed him dubiously.

"Tell me more," she said.

"You feeling strong, Bols?"

"Not particularly."

"Alright, I'll be the brawn, you be the brains."

"I usually am."

"We take these two human bottles of beer down to the Fiat," Gene began, "load them in the back, take them to Shoebury's. I've still got a key. We'll drop them in, raid their kitchen, bring back enough to replace the food and booze they've put in their guts and get back here for a three course meal of love, sex and edible knickers."

Alex stared at him. She pursed her ilps as she thought.

"You've had a bit to drink, Gene."

"Not enough to knock the sense out of me candy cane."

"I was thinking about the_ driving_," she sighed.

Gene hesitated. He reached into his pocket and picked up the keys.

"One scratch and I'll be eating those knickers on me own," he said.

Alex took the key from him with a smug smile.

"Merry Christmas indeed," she said.

~xXx~

"How much does the bugger weigh?" Gene could hardly speak as he hauled an unconscious Simon over his shoulder. "Wasn't this bloody heavy when he turned up and bled all over me car two months ago."

"Must be all the sprouts," sighed Alex as she dragged Kim along, her feet skimming the floor, "I thought you were supposed to be the brawn anyway."

"Yeah well," Gene groaned as began to climb the stairs, "turned out I didn't have as much brawn as I thought I did." He reached the top of the stairs and somehow unlocked the door with Simon still draped over his shoulder. "Come on, sooner we unload the sleepers the sooner Missus Claus can get her Christmas presents."

They dumped their charges down on the sofa and stood back, staring at the sleeping pair.

"Christmas – _ruined,"_ Alex sighed, "why did you have to let them in?"

"When I figure that one out I'll tell you," Gene mumbled, scowling at the pair of them. He hesitated. This didn't quite seem enough somehow. "Revenge is a dish best served with sprouts," he said.

Alex looked at him, a little alarmed.

"Oh Gene, let's just leave them and go home," she said.

"Wait a minute, Bolly," he began, "let's just have a bit of fun with the homos."

"I already had my 'fun' with Kim earlier, remember?"

Gene hoisted Simon back over his shoulder. The pissed Shoebury made a momentary '_Oof!'_ noise but stayed asleep.

"Get yer tonsil tennis partner and come with me," said Gene as he dragged Simon through to the bedroom.

Reluctantly Alex grabbed Kim under her arms again and dragged her through. She found Gene already loading Simon into the bed.

"What do you want me to do with her?" she asked, already knowing the answer.

"Put her in with Shoebury," said Gene, helping her to hoist Kim onto the bed. She mumbled and muttered a little but didn't wake up.

"I donmt think this is a very good idea," Alex sighed, trying to act as the voice of reason but her own frustration at their interruption meant that she didn't protest that much.

"Come on Bolly, got to make it look a bit more convincing than that," said Gene. He wrestled a couple of Simon's buttons undone then rolled Kim onto her side and placed Simon's hands against her backside. _"There." _He said, beginning to march out the door.

"Where are you going?" Alex demanded.

"Getting the camera from the car," Gene called back.

Alex closed her eyes and leaned against the wall.

"I have a very bad feeling about this," she sighed. Kim's words from 2011 played through her head.

"_And Simon forgives Gene eventually…"_

"Well that at least is comforting to know," she sighed.

Gene appeared back in the doorway a moment later with the Polaroid camera they'd taken to _Bask_ a few nights earlier. It had been sitting in the car ever since.

"Stroke o' luck," he said. He studied the scene like a professional photographer. "Think we need anything else?"

"You mean rose petals stroon around the place?" Alex asked sarcastically.

"Maybe we should put a lipstick mark on 'is collar," said Gene.

"Kim doesn't wear lipstick," Alex sighed.

"Well she's wearing _yours,"_ Gene was quick to point out.

Alex frowned and put her hands on her hips as she watched Gene taking three shots – including a close up of the _hands-on-arse_ part, then let them develop. An evil grin spread across his face as he watched the pictures forming before him.

"Alright, Bols, one brief stop and then it's home to test drive those edible undies."

"One _stop?"_ Alex groaned, "Gene. It's Christmas Day, where the hell do you want to go?"

"Strike while the iron's hot," said Gene.

"My _'iron'_ has been hot since eight o clock this morning," Alex told him haughtily, "if you don't want it cooling down then you had better put some fast work into action."

To her shock, Gene raced down the road and across to the station. Why the hell was he going there? Alex sighed, shook her head and climbed in the car. Gene had five minutes. Otherwise she was going home alone and he could bloody hitch-hike.

He made it with seconds to spare, threw himself in the passenger side and gave her another warning about scratching the car.

"Do I want to know what you were doing in there?" Alex asked.

Gene hesitated.

"Some things are best left to the imagination," said Gene, "besides, you'll find out soon enough."

Alex looked at him warily.

"And now?" she said, "is it time to fire up the edible knickers?"

"Get me car home in one piece and I'll throw in the bra as well."

~xXx~

There had never, ever been a pain like it. Simon was sure of that.

The pounding in his head was worse than when his skull was crushed by the file server.

He barely opened his eyes a didn't dare move. He wasn't sure his brain would survive it.

He was lying down. That, he was sure of, although he couldn't work out where, and his hands felt very warm. Then a familiar voice began to speak.

"Simon?"

It was Kim. He was certain.

"Hmm?" his comment was the quietest, least enthusiastic murmuring in the world.

There was a pause.

"What… are your bloody hands… _doing… on my ARSE?"_

There was a heartbeat in which Simon couldn't make sense of anything that was happening. Then, the next moment he realised exactly why his hands felt so warm.

"Oh my god!" he pulled his hands away and started wiping them urgently on the sheets. "Ugh! Lady arse cooties!"

He scrambled upright and Kim did the same, staring at Simon as she breathed heavily, trying to work out what was going on.

"How did we get here?" she demanded, "and why are half your buttons undone?"

"Shouldn't I be asking_ you_ that?" Simon demanded, hastily doing them back up.

"What are we doing in bed?"

"Well I don't bloody know!"

Kim checked under the covers.

"Well we're fully clothed, so we can't have been –" she trailed off, shuddering at the mere thought of it.

"Speak for yourself," muttered Simon who was having trouble doing those buttons back up.

Kim held her head. It was pulsing and throbbing.

"How the hell did we get here?" she groaned.

Simon tried to shake his head but his brain bounced around too much.

"I've no idea," he groaned, "last thing I remember was something about…" he tried to recall the events of the day, "someone having a crush? Was it on the Queen?"

"I remember sprouts," said Kim, "…_lots_ of sprouts," her faced turned green and her stomach groaned audibly, reminding her they were still there, waiting to cause havoc later, _"urgh."_

"I think I remember something about Gene's… uh…" he momentarily flashed back to Gene's state of undress when he arrived at the window to yell at them first thing in the morning, "but that could have been a dream…"

"I think I went to the FBI and started getting fresh with Scully," Kim rubbed her head. "…did we put a sheep in a toaster at one point?"

"Bloody hope not," mumbled Simon. He looked at Kim. "I don't even remember getting here from Alex's."

"Me neither," sighed Kim.

Simon hiccupped.

"I don't feel brilliant," he said.

"Join the club."

Simon gave a deep sigh. He held his head and closed his eyes.

"Kim," he sighed, "I'm sorry. I was supposed to be giving you a merry Christmas."

"Well I _might_ have had one," said Kim, "I just don't remember, that's all."

Simon bit his lip. He looked at her seriously.

"I remember one thing," he said.

"The spouts?"

"No. You said I was like your brother."

Kim's expression softened. Despite her churning stomach and a head that felt like someone was tap-dancing inside of it, she smiled.

"You are," she said.

That made Simon smile. He missed his sisters greatly. Here, he found in Kim the next best thing.

"Look," he said quietly, "I'll tell you what. It might not be the best Christmas on record… and we might not exactly be in the best of health tonight…"

"You're not kidding," Kim rubbed her temples.

"But why don't I go and make some coffee, get some very unhealthy, chocolatey snacks and the TV guide, bring them back to bed and we stay here and watch crap TV until we pass out again?"

Kim hesitated.

"Will this tray of goodies also include paracetamol and alka seltzer?" she asked.

"They're obligatory," said Simon.

Kim gave a tired smile.

"In that case," she said, "that sounds really good to me."

Simon smiled back. He slowly got out of bed, his head jarring with every movement and began to make his way out of the room. He stopped at the doorway and glanced around.

"Kim?"

"Hmm?"

He hesitated.

"Merry Christmas," he said with a smile, then slumped off to find the promised tray of goodies.

Kim watched him leave, a smile on her own face too.

"Yes," she said quietly, "I really think it has been."


	105. Chapter 64, 1995: A Due

_**A/N: Here's the first of tonight's chapters!**_

**Chapter Sixty Four**

The long wait was finally over. What they had started many hours before in the early hours of Christmas day, Gene and Alex finally saw to completion. It had been a very long and frustrating day, their unwanted guests had spent many hours getting in the way of the Christmas 'festivities' they'd both been looking forward to but finally their frustration had been relieved, their appetites sated and their thirst quenched.

"Worth the wait," Alex sighed with a smile across her face as she lay against Gene's chest. The bed was littered with the remains of edible underwear that hadn't been quite as tasty as they'd been expecting. It was chewy, nasty and left a horrible aftertaste of sprouts. However, it had other benefits and was easily dealt with when the time came to scratch that itch they'd been suffering all day.

"Was a time this afternoon I thought you were going to explode," Gene told her, "never seen you like that before. Thought I was going to be picking bits of Bolly off the kitchen walls for weeks to come."

He'd noticed a change in her sexual appetite since she'd awoken. The one part of the 'other' Alex that seemed to have remained was her libido. Not that Alex's appetite had ever left Gene unsatisfied, but she'd developed a new kind of urgency and desperation she'd never had before. It was a new dimension that Gene had to admit he was enjoying.

"Well it's not _my_ fault you had to wait until evening to open yiour stocking," she told him, "next Christmas we're hiding. And soundproofing. Triple glazing. Quadruple gazing. Anything to block out that caterwauling."

Gene groaned.

"If they come back again next Christmas for a repeat performance they'll be getting sprouts again but next time they won't be going in through the traditional orifice," he warned.

Alex closed her eyes for a moment as she fell silent. Her fingers ran along his chest as her mind went over the events of the day. Every other sentence seemed to have been _'we'll talk tonight'_. And now it_ was_ 'tonight', there was no avoiding the subject.

"Do you think Kim will still be here next year?" she asked quietly. It was a subtle start to the conversation.

Gene sighed and her head rose and fell on his chest as he breathed in and out.

"Bols, there are some things I don't know," he began, "I don't see the departure list. I'm lucky if I get to see the arrivals."

Alex closed her eyes. She felt her heart increase.

"Gene," she whispered, "what's happening to this world?"

She was met with silence. It wasn't unexpected. She knew it was likely to be a difficult question to answer, even with a joke or a piece of sarcasm but it was still hard for her to wait for him to speak. It felt as though a lifetime passed before he finally spoke up.

"It's gone loco, Drakey. Coco-loco."

Alex breathed deeply. She pulled herself away from his chest and laid beside him, looking up at his expression. She'd never seen him look so unsure before.

"How did this start, Gene?" she asked, "where did things start changing?"

Gene reached out and took the glass from beside the bed. They'd saved a bottle of the good stuff for their Christmas evening. This wasn't the kind of conversation they'd been expecting to have alongside it though.

"The moment Shoebury turned up in his size nines, fainted at me feet and bled all over me backseat," he sighed. He looked at her. "That was the start of the 'firsts'."

"The firsts?"

"First one to ever come back after being dead here. And first one to have a plus one in tow."

Alex hesitated.

"Simon wasn't the first one to come back after dying," she whispered. She bit her lip. "Keats."

Gene flinched. He hadn't even thought about that.

"Bloody fork-tail gets everywhere," he mumbled.

"He came back a few months before Simon," she said quietly, "That's got to be significant, hasn't it?"

"Possibly."

"Keats and Simon seem to be battling it out, back and forth," Alex sighed, "it's possible Keats's will to defeat Simon brought him to the same year."

"Is it possible we can leave this conversation for a time when I haven't still got bits of edible underwear between me teeth?" Gene asked.

But Alex was on a roll.

"But then that, of course, brings us to whether Simon was supposed to come to ninety five at all," she said.

Gene sighed.

"Can I at least floss?"

"Now, as you pointed out, Simon and Robin came together."

"Too much information," said Gene.

Alex rolled her eyes.

"_Please,_ Gene, we need to discuss this," she said, "we've been putting this off for days."

Gene gave a low growl. He supposed he wasn't going to get out of this conversation.

"If you go and get a bloody notebook there'll be no Christmas pudding for you," he warned.

Alex looked at him.

"Be serious, Guv," she said quietly, "How did they arrive together?"

Gene stared at her in silence. He had been puzzling that question for weeks already.

"Bolly, I don't know," he said, "maybe it was a mistake. Maybe some automatic doors _broke down _and they got through together. Maybe they were so tied together they couldn't be spilt up."

"Nineteen ninety five was Robin's bogey year," said Alex, "not Simon's. Simon dealt with his demons in the eighties. He loved the nineties, he said so himself. Robin had the terrible business with his father to confront. And that's another thing," she found her thoughts rambling as they led from one thing to another, "Robin stepped in and took himself out of that house. _Himself!_ How did he do that?"

"Weedy bloke like him? No idea."

"Stop messing around, Gene," Alex needed him to take this seriously, "I tried to stop my parents from being killed and I couldn't."

"Robin didn't stop his mother carking it either," Gene pointed out tactfully.

"No, but he took his younger self out of the room, Gene," Alex told him, "that couldn't have happened before."

"Didn't change anything _out there,"_ said Gene.

Alex closed her eyes.

"It did," she whispered.

"Didn't."

"It didn't change the past, it changed the future."

Gene's head hurt.

"Can we start again?" he pleased, "nothing's made sense since the edible knickers."

Alex sighed. She stared up at Gene.

"The Robin I met in two thousand and eleven was different," she said, "stronger. He took something important from his time here. And although he was mourning Simon and struggling with his loss, he had a self-assurance he didn't have before. There was something inside him that had changed. He was his own hero."

Gene sighed.

"So what are you saying, you wanna go back again and carry little Alex away from the flames?" he asked.

"We're not talking about me," Alex said a little crossly. She didn't want to think about her parents, especially not when memories of Evan and her mother's tryst were haunting her.

Gene looked at her seriously. He knew he was trying to avoid the real issues. He didn't want to contemplate changes to a world he'd known inside-out for so many years.

"Shoebury and Batman couldn't be parted," he said, "remember Kite and her bloody Jarvis Cocker lookalike? There were no last orders for them until they were both ready. They were a pair. Like you and me. Like Zig and Zag."

"Then why did Robin go home and Simon stayed here?" Alex asked.

Gene shook his head.

"I can't answer that, Bols," he said, "I have no idea. They 'ad an accident. Maybe Shoebury was supposed to go to a different time. Maybe he wasn't supposed to come back at all. He was dead here and he made 'is peace. He had no papers –"

"But that's because Keats had them," said Alex, "Kim stole them. Remember?"

"…But if he _wasn't_ supposed to be here then why would he be here as a DCI?" Gene continued his thoughts, "packing Kite off to the Railway Arms with 'er first aid kit?"

"Robin didn't have any paperwork," Alex said suddenly.

"What?"

"Robin didn't have any paperwork," Alex repeated.

"He went to uniform," Gene reminded her.

"He transferred to CID," Alex pointed out, "didn't they send over any paperwork?"

"Didn't have a lot of time, he buggered off a few hours later," Gene reminded her.

Alex sighed. This was getting her nowhere.

"Robin and Simon's arrival coincided with me feeling a little…"

"Wobbly in the 'ead," said Gene.

"_Off colour,"_ Alex corrected, "which culminated in me waking up for a few moments… fading out, coming back." She swallowed as she remembered it. How much she'd longed to wake up and go home for all those years… then when it happened she found herself torn and confused. "But my body… wasn't strong enough," she said quietly.

Gene looked at her. That wasn't the reason. He was fairly sure of that now. He felt reluctant to say so, in case he was wrong – which, he was keen to remind himself – never happened. But there was always a first time.

"Your body wasn't too weak, Bols. Your will was too strong." He stared at her as she looked at him. There was confusion in her eyes but a certain amount of it was false. She knew what he was saying but didn't want to come out and admit it. "You'd made your decision. You wanted to stay."

As mother to Molly, Alex wanted to yell at Gene for suggesting such a thing and protest that her daughter still took priority. But she couldn't even lie to herself. While blood might be thicker than water, fifteen years counted for a lot. She closed her eyes and laid her head back against his chest. That way she could confirm his thoughts without needing to say a word.

She felt his fingers running through her hair. It was warm and comforting. She needed that. She needed it to confront her next thoughts.

"I split in two," she whispered.

"That's a talent," Gene couldn't resist lowering the tone.

"My _soul_ split in two," she carried on, "I wanted both things too much. That's never happened before… has it?"

"No, Bolly. It hasn't."

Alex nodded a little against him. She was glad of the warmth and comfort his body offered. This wasn't a subject she wanted to think about.

"My soul split right down the middle," she continued, "but the halves crossed the wrong way round. Like a crossed line. Has that ever happened before?"

"I'm not a bloody telephone engineer."

"Has anything ever happened with souls before?" asked Alex, "someone going to the wrong place? To the wrong body or the wrong time or someone coming here by mistake when they were supposed to go elsewhere?"

"I'm not all-seeing, all-knowing, Bols, I don't know."

She took a deep breath.

"Could Simon and Robin have been a crossed line?"

"They're as big a geek as each other, you'd never know the difference."

"I mean, what if one of them really wasn't supposed to come to ninety five? Or the wrong one went home? Or _neither _of them were supposed to go home?"

"Too many theories, Bols," Gene had brain ache, "don't have the answers to this."

"And the bleedthroughs," Alex said quietly, "I don't understand them. How can you and Simon be getting messages and glimpses from _there_?" She shook her head, "Gene, I've had them through my whole time here, less in recent years but they're things that filter through from my unconscious body. You and Simon can't have that So how? It's not like I've had anything since I've been home… I haven't noticed Kim getting anything either. You heard that radio message, the one about me and Robin. And Simon had a memo about Robin, then on the TV… and he saw him in the tattoo studio, apparently."

"What was Shoebury doing in a tattoo studio in the first place?" frowned Gene.

"I wanted to know the exact same thing," sighed Alex. She pulled away a little and looked Gene in the eye. "And," she whispered, "there was one other thing."

"Tuning into the shipping forecast?" Gene asked.

"When I was in two thousand and eleven," Alex continued, "I watched…" she sighed, "I'd almost describe it as a video nasty. It was a documentary about Keats. But at the end of it the screen went blank and I saw," she swallowed, "I saw me. _Her._ The other me. The one who the ancient haircut." She saw Gene beginning to look worried, "she was watching something on a screen, and then _he_ appeared behind her."

"Jimbo?"

Alex nodded.

"How did I see her, Gene?"

Gene breathed in deeply.

"She was still a part of you, Bolly. Connection must have been strong."

"That's what I thought too but what Simon told me made me think again." Alex sighed, "what if there's another reason? What if the worlds are coming closer together?"

"How d'you mean?"

"I don't know," Alex sighed, "what if they almost brush together sometimes? Like two cars coming closer together until someone can jump from one to the other?"

"Lady B, how much of this bubbly have you had?" Gene frowned, sitting up and reaching for his glass.

Alex reached for hers too.

"I know how crazy that sounds," she began, "but when I was away, there were moments when it felt like you were so close I could almost touch you. Like worlds were colliding. Like in Keats's flat."

Gene froze mid-sip. He turned to her.

"What were you doing in Jimbo's lair?"

"That's where we found all the files," Alex said, "I told you that."

Gene hesitated.

"Why d'you bring that up now?"

Alex shook her head slowly.

"You'll call me crazy."

"Never stopped you before."

Alex hesitated.

"That's true." She paused. "Gene, there were moments when we were there I swore I caught your scent in the air. It felt like I could reach out and touch you. Like you were walking the same path."

Gene felt his heart become very fast suddenly.

"Jimbo's flat," he said quietly.

Alex watched his expression change.

"What?"

Gene swallowed. He had forgotten all about that.

"Me and Shoebury paid a visit too," he said quietly. "All the time it felt like you were right there with me." He closed his eyes. "Felt like we were breathing the same air." He looked back at her. Her mouth was hanging open a little. He knew she'd felt the same. "And Shoebury was feeling spooked out of his nerdy backside too. Thought some ghost held his hand or something."

Alex's face whitened by several shades.

"Robin felt a hand over his," she whispered.

Gene felt himself gulp. His tongue ran around his dry lips.

"Worlds used to be closer," he said. His mind went over a conversation with Simon during the stake out. He remembered how things had seemed so much more tangible going back a couple of decades. Back when he was in Manchester the worlds didn't seem so far apart. Over time, as his world had grown, so had its distance from the real world. Were they coming back together?

"Simon said something," Alex began a little sadly, "he said he thinks Robin was here, just for a split second. When he crashed he saw Robin in the seat beside him, just for a moment. He crossed over, but must have gone back again, and then," she began to feel her heart breaking for them both, "Simon said he dreamed of someone begging him to pull them over, but they slipped away. It was Robin. It had to be."

Gene hesitated.

"If he was supposed to be here, he'd be here," he said.

"Crossed wires, Gene," Alex said quietly, "I wasn't supposed to end up _that_ way around." She hesitated and lifted her glass to her lips nervously. "And," she began quietly, "can we get one white elephant out of the way please?" she noticed Gene looking worried, "what happened with me and Robin on the road," she said, "How did I get back here?"

"Yer body suffered a massive accident," said Gene.

"But I was only half of me," said Alex, "and there was another me already here." She hesitated. "I wouldn't just come back here like I did the first time around, Gene. There would have been two Alex Drakes. Three if you count mini-me, married to Peter Drake. I needed someone to send me ready for you to…to help guide me home. I know it. I can feel it in here," she put her hand to her heart. "And the bullet. It went right through him." She watched Gene's expression as it became more worried and confused, "what does it mean, Gene? Is it because the worlds were so close, he was picking up on it from Simon? If they're so closely linked that they came here together could he have been… tuning in somehow?" Gene's expression didn't change. "Or is that why he went home? Because he had a job to do? To help me?" Still Gene didn't react although his eyes were filling with confusion. "Or wasn't he supposed to go home at all?" she took a deep breath. "Is he even alive, Gene?"

Gene stared at her. He'd been quiet for a long time. He looked down and found her hand to hold. He looked back at her and held her gaze.

"Bolly. Been here longer than I care to remember, and I've not found the cheat sheet yet. I don't think we're going to find any answers for a while yet. Definitely none tonight." He moved a little closer. "Things are changing and, honestly, it's scaring seven shades of shit out of me. I don't know what it means. I don't know what's going to happen from here. No stars on the ceiling, Bols, not since you came back. That's important. If things are changing then at least they're not falling apart. We'll concentrate on that for now."

Alex held his gaze. She nodded, if a little reluctantly. She'd hoped that their talk would bring some answers but it only held more questions. She closed her eyes and leaned against him again.

"At least we know we'll be facing it together," she said, "I'm home. Where I belong." She felt Gene's hand travelling slowly up and down the inside of her thigh and knew a second round of festive frivolity was on its way. Before she gave in to his attentions she mused, "I sort of wish Robin was here." She paused. "I don't mean _here…"_ she pointed to the bed.

"He wouldn't be bloody doing _this_ if he was," Gene told her.

"No, that is true," Alex smiled and let herself relax a little at his touch, but she couldn't help worrying about their conversations and the implications for Robin. Something wasn't adding up. Rules were bending and nothing was as it should be. She tried to cast away her thoughts of 2011 as she sipped beneath the covers but she knew it wouldn't be the end of the matter. Not while Simon was seeing ghosts and worlds were coming so close together that she could practically reach out and touch it.


	106. Chapter 65, 1995: Con Amore

_**A/N: Second chapter tonight!**_

**Chapter Sixty Five**

_#...Have yourself a merry little Christmas_

_Let your heart be light_

_Next year all our troubles will be out of sight…#_

As it neared midnight and the last of the champagne had been finished, Gene and Alex sat beside the tree.

"It hardly seems worth getting up," she commented, "we're going back to bed in a minute."

"There are still presents to be opened," Gene reminded her.

"Oh not edible Y-fronts," sighed Alex, "please!"

"No, no more edible underwear," sighed Gene.

He began to root around under the tree while _Meet Me In St Louis_ played quietly on the television. Their earlier conversation had left them both feeling a little disturbed and cautious for the future, although both knew that they were strong enouh together to face anything that came their way.

"It wasn't all bad," Alex said quite suddenly.

Gene glanced at her.

"The bloody idiot box?" he asked, "well I found bugger all to watch, but…"

"No, _today,"_ said Alex, "Christmas."

"Thought you were down on it," said Gene.

"Not entirely," Alex smiled distantly, "maybe the _kids_ were a little…"

"Bloody annoying?"

"_Excitable,"_ Alex finished, "but at least they had somewhere to go. It was never going to be an easy day for them." She smiled. "And they did bring a lot of beer."

Gene leaned back against the side of the couch as he pulled the last of the presents out into the room.

"This time last year we had a whole different team," he said.

"I miss Susannah,." Alex said quietly, "I even miss Malcolm." She paused. "Sometimes."

"Don't miss his bloody purple suit," said Gene.

"No one misses that," said Alex.

Gene rubbed his eyes.

"Never expected to see bloody Shoebury and his size elevens back again," he said.

"It's been a year of surprises," Alex agreed. Her eyes turned to the engagement ring upon her finger.

Gene handed her a parcel.

"Here. Merry Christmas, Bollyknickers," he said.

Alex had to admit that Christmas wrapping paper sent her into a burst of excitement. It was like being a kid again. She began to tear into it, before hesitating and saying suspiciously,

"You didn't just wrap up some things from my kitchen drawer did you?"

"Do you want your present or not, you ungrateful mare?"

"That would be a yes," said Alex as she finished unwrapping the package. Inside was a mug. She took the tissue paper off from around it and looked at the caption.

_I went to 2011 and all I got was this lousy mug._

"Where the hell did you get this?" she demanded.

"Shop in town, personalise yer own mugs," said Gene.

"And what kind of looks did they give you when you ordered this?" she asked.

"Didn't get any looks," he said, "I'd already threatened to stick some porcelain where the sun doesn't shine."

"Fair enough," said Alex. She gave a hesitant smile. As a gift it was a rare mix of being thoughtful and thought_less_, she wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry. In the end she decided to laugh and kissed Gene on the cheek.

"Very nice, Guv," she said, "thank you." She hooked out another box and handed this one to Gene. "There you go. Now don't say I never do anthing for you."

Gene took the parcel with a sigh and opened it up. There was a glint in her eye that made him feel that had either got him something very, very good or something very, very bad. As he opened the packaging he froze and stared.

"I don't bloody believe it."

She watched him expectantly as he took the rest of the paper from the parcel.

"Well?"

"Buzz buggering Lightyear!"

"And _don't_ you dare try to tell me that's not the right one because I had to fight three mothers and two small children to get the last one for you."

Gene stared at his present. It was the unthinkable. He'd seen the news reports of the riots. He'd even been sent to _deal_ with three of them. It sounded like Alex had _causef_ one of them.

But she'd done it. She'd got him Buzz Lightyear.

He had the best bloody fiancé in Fenchurch.

"For that, Missus Woman," he began, "you deserve a very special Christmas nightcap."

He got to his feet and grabbed her hand.

"To infinity…?" Alex asked as he pulled her upright.

"And beyond," Gene assured her.

~xXx~

_#...Have yourself a merry little Christmas_

_Make the yule-tide gay_

_Next year all our troubles will be miles away…#_

Kim was in serious danger of losing her hard-girl persona as the damn lyrics started to make her eyes teary.

"Kim?"

_Shit._ He'd seen

"What?"

"Are you allergic or something?"

Kim wasn't sure if it was a blessing or a curse. Her tough image now made people think she had allergies before they considered the possibility of her getting weepy.

"No, must be the cold."

"Come here then," Simon put a friendly arm around her as they watched the end of the movie. They had a head start in their hangovers. With any luck they might get the worst of them out of the way before Boxing Day arrived. They'd already downed painkillers and enough water to flood a small village. Kim was having hallucinations about walking sprouts but she was sure they'd go in time.

"I'm scared, Simon."

"Scared?" that wasn't a word he was used to hearing from Kim, "what of?"

Kim hesitated. It sounded silly.

"Of going home," she whispered. For months it was the one thought that had kept her going and the moment Simon told her that he knew for sure she would make it her heart soared and her relief was indescribable. But now she had started to think about the consequences of leaving Gene's world. Being back in the real world, back in 2003. Trying to get used to her old life. Returning to a body free of ink and holes. Getting to know her family and friends all over again. More than that, she was only just starting to realise what she would be leaving behind.

"What do you mean, Kim?"

Kim glanced at him.

"It's terrifying," she whispered, "I've been here so long. Months. And I hated every day of it, for months and months, but now –"

Simon turned to look at her. There was a pained expression on her face.

"Go on."

Kim looked at him.

"I'm not great at making friends," she said quietly, "I don't like being away from those I've got. And while I've missed the people I know back home so badly…" she looked at him with great sadness, "I'm going to have to say goodbye to you."

Simon's own expression fell. He realised he'd started to become a little reliant on Kim. She was only supposed to be staying with him for a few days but she'd become his permanent flatmate. What would he do when the time came for her to wake up at home and he wouldn't come home to her every day? Bye bye banter, so long friendship. He would never see her again. That was hard to think about.

"There are some very cruel aspects of this world," he said quietly, I'm going to miss you too..

"Like hell you are."

"Seriously. Who's going to teach me how to drink?""

"You seem to be doing pretty well."

"Who's going to watch the X Files with me?"

"Get Alex round, it'll be like having Scully there with you in the room."

"Who's going to tease me and take the piss out of my jumper?"

"You've got Gene for that."

Simon sighed.

"They're not _you_ though," he said.

Kim gave him a sad smile. She knew what he meant. She didn't think she would ever meet anyone like him again. There was only ever going to be one Simon.

"I know," he said quietly, "and there's never going to be anyone around here like you." He hesitated. His earlier conversation with Alex came to him. He knew he couldn't tell her what was ahead, but there was something he needed to say. "But Kim, this is _months_ out of your life. You have years ahead of you. You have a full and happy life, and you have so much to look forward to. You'll be safe. You'll be happy. And I'll never forget you."

Kim's smile was sad and a little forced. She wished that she believed him but she couldn't quite commit to that. Her worries weren't going to go away that easily. But Simon's enthusiasm for her future had given her a little boost.

"I'll remember you every Christmas," she promised.

Simon thought of the toast he'd heard on the radio and seen on the TV. He gave a tiny smile.

"Yes," he said quietly, "I know you will."

~xXx~

_#...Once again as in olden days_

_Happy golden days of yore_

_Faithful friends who were near to us_

_Will be dear to us once more…#_

"Well, that's it then I suppose," Gene grumbled as he shoved another handful of wrapping paper into the black bin bag, "Christmas, gone for another year. What a bloody anti-climax."

"That's no reflection on your bedroom prowess," Alex teased.

Gene tipped the last of the sprouts into the bin liner and tied the top.

"Wouldn't like to be within a mile of Stringer's arse tonight after ten of these buggers," he commented.

"If you don't want me to cook sprouts then why did you buy them?" Alex asked.

"Tradition, isn't it?"

"So's leaving a glass of something out for Santa but I didn't see you rushing to share your scotch." She finished collecting up rogue glasses and plates and was about to take them through to the kitchen when she caught sight of Gene holding a small package. "What's that?"

"Shoebury's extra _present,"_ Gene frowned, "Forgot about this."

"Aren't you going to open it?" asked Alex.

Gene glanced from the parcel in his hands to Alex's behind disappearing into the kitchen.

"Might be safer to leave it like this and throw it straight in the bin," he said.

"Oh come on, that's mean!"

"It's a jumper, a bloody compacted jumper," said Gene, "he went to a car crusher and put his jumper in, Then he made it as small and condensed as he could and wrapped it up."

Alex came back into the room with a sigh.

"It's no more than you deserve for whatever it is you've done to him tonight," Alex told him.

"I was just helping the government out with a brand new _drink-in-moderation_ campaign showing the after effects of too much of the good stuff," Gene explained.

Alex frowned.

"What exactly have you done?" she demanded.

"Few tasteful posters. Never realised I had such an artistic side."

"Gene, that's horrible!"

"So was Christmas Day with Nerd Boy and Metal Girl." He paused, "that's their superhero names."

"Oh really?" Alex sighed. She sank into the couch, exhausted, as Gene finally conceded and started to open the package. As he began to pull the item from within he froze, then glanced at Alex before pulling it out the rest of the way. "What? What is it?"

Gene held up a clear box with a cut-glass whiskey tumbler inside. His name had been engraved into the side.

"Bugger," he said.

"What?"

Gene glanced up.

"That guilt thing," he said, "remind me what that feels like again?"

"Why?" Alex asked cautiously.

Gene handed her the tumbler and she gave a little gasp as she studied it.

"This must have cost a fortune," she whispered.

Gene hadn't bothered reading the tag on the gift before now, but he opened the card and read what Simon had written.

'_Gene,'_ it said, _'to say thank you for accepting me as part of your team even though I am a poofy, nerdy, jumper-wearing shoe-shop assistant. Simon.'_

"Double bugger," sighed Gene.

Alex took the tag from him and read it. She looked back at Gene who was definitely regretting being so quick with the Polaroid revenge.

"That's really nice," she said.

"That's 'is problem all over, he's too bloody 'nice'," muttered Gene. He groaned and shook his head. "First thing in the morning, back to Fenchurch East for me. Time to rethink my _drink in moderation_ campaign."

Alex nodded.

"A good decision," she said.

"However," Gene got to his feet, "there's the matter of a warm bed and a warm Bolly to deal with. Spent far more of today away from the bed than I'd hoped for. Let's make up for that now."

With that he escorted Alex to the bedroom for a nightcap and assorted festive frolicking that would make Rudolph's nose blush. It hadn't been the Christmas either of them had been expecting but it had been one they'd never forget – for good and for bad reasons. But they'd got their wish – they'd spent it together. And that was the best present they could have had.

Except, perhaps, for Buzz Lightyear.

~xXx~

Kim could feel herself falling asleep again. The strange day and all the alcohol had started to get to her and the exhaustion overcoming her was hard to resist. After her fifth enormous yawn Simon commented.

"You can go to sleep you know."

Kim exhaled a little forcefully.

"I know," she said, "I just feel like fighting it. I feel like I'm on a sleepover." It was strange sharing Simon's bed. It made her feel like a teenager, staying up all night, eating junk food, watching scary movies – well, Perhaps _Meet Me In St Louis_ wasn't quite the movie she would have chosen in her teenage years but the rest was incredibly reminiscent.

"So when do we have the pillow fight?" teased Simon.

"Oh, no," groaned Kim, "my head couldn't take it!" she clutched her temples as she tried to stop her brain rolling around in there.

Simon saw her eyes beginning to close again and said quickly,

"Hey, before you fell asleep…"

"Not falling asleep," Kim mumbled as her eyes half closed.

"…I think I'd better give you your Christmas present," Simon concluded.

That woke her up.

"Present?" she asked.

Simon reached into his bedside cabinet and pulled out an envelope.

"Here you are," he said, "merry Christmas."

Kim looked a little suspicious.

"Tell me it's not Red Dwarf cuttings?" she asked.

"Just open it and see," sighed Simon.

Kim groaned a little and opened the envelope. She pulled out a piece of paper and frowned at it. The words on it seemed to be gobbledygook.

"Why have you written a load of flibberty nonsense?" she demanded.

"Those," Simon told her, "are all the Eurovision winners from two thousand and four through to two thousand and ten." He gave a firm nod, slightly disappointed to see a look of abject horror on her face. "Kim, I'm not suggesting you _watch_ the damn thing! Memorise them, go home write them down and bingo – put as bet on every year! Quick cash bonus."

As Kim stared at the paper Simon's idea finally began to dawn upon her. Her smile broadened and she gave a nod.

"I get it now," she said, "That's… that's actually pretty bloody clever."

"I couldn't think what to give you," said Simon, "like Alex said earlier, you can't take it back when you go home. But if you commit these to memory you've got yourself a nice little nest egg!"

"You're an absolute bloody genus!" cried Kim. She grabbed the sides of his head roughly, gave a big, playful kiss to his forehead complete with cheesy 'mwah!' sound effects and ruffled what was left if his hair. "You have this time travel stuff licked," she said.

"And you thought watching Red Dwarf was a waste of time," mocked Simon.

Kim smiled at him. Despite her brief second wind her eyes started to close again.

"Yours is in the lounge," she mumbled, "you'll have to have it tomorrow.

"No problem," said Simon.

He felt her head go a little heavy against his shoulder as she gradually drifted into a deep sleep. Carefully, he took the sheet of paper from her hand and laid it safely beside the bed, then moved the last of their unhealthy snacks onto the floor.

"Goodnight, Kim," he whispered as he pulled the duvet up around them.

It had been a strange and unusual Christmas. Happy, sad, emotional, confusing – but above all, it had been a Christmas of survival. They'd both made it. Despite being away from home and being unable to share the festive season with those they loved they'd still managed to share it with friends. It wasn't ideal, but it was just about right.

Simon was very glad for one thing he'd discovered that day. He had true friends in 1995.

As the end of the movie played out his thoughts drifted to Robin before he fell asleep. Alex's words ran through his mind. He was. He was _very_ proud of Robin for surviving. He hoped that, if he could somehow see him there, today, that Robin would have been proud of him too.

_#...Someday soon, we all will be together_

_If the Fates allow_

_Until then, we'll have to muddle through somehow_

_So have yourself a merry little Christmas now…#_

_**~xXx~**_

_**A/N: Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas is my favourite Christmas song. While looking for the lyrics to copy and paste because I was too lazy to type them I stumbled upon the Wikipedia article for the song and apparently the original draft of the lyrics was even more depressing. When I read the words I couldn't believe it – they were even more appropriate for this situation!**_

_I have bolded below the parts that are truly fitting:_

_**Have yourself a merry little Christmas, it may be your last,**_

_**Next year we may all be living in the past**_

_Have yourself a merry little Christmas, pop that champagne cork,_

_Next year we will all be living in New York._

_No good times like the olden days, happy golden days of yore,_

_**Faithful friends who were dear to us, will be near to us no more.**_

_But at least we all will be together, if the Fates allow,_

_From now on we'll have to muddle through somehow._

_So have yourself a merry little Christmas now._

_*sob* Pass the tissues!_


	107. Chapter 66, 1995: Insistendo

_**A/N: Two chapters tonight; they're a little shorter than usual, going through a rough time health-wise and even my muse is suffering! But I hope you still enjoy them!**_

**Chapter Sixty Six**

Gene returned home to find Alex sitting at the kitchen table making notes.

"It's nine in the morning on Boxing Day," he observed, "and you've got yer bloody notebook on the go." He threw his car keys onto the cabinet beside him and took a bundle of papers through to the lounge. "No good is ever going to come of a day that starts like this."

Alex put the lid back on her pen, put down her notebook and came to see what all the rustling was about.

"What's this?" she frowned.

"Attack of the conscience," Gene explained, "revoked me revenge."

It was the first time Alex had seen _Gene's drink-in-moderation_ campaign. The photocopied enlargements were surprisingly clear.

"There are… rather artier than I was expecting," she said, unfolding one.

"Hidden depths, Bols," said Gene, "hidden depths."

"I don't think you needed to draw the arrow from here to here," Alex pointed out, "Almost everyone will already know that's where it would go."

"Not sure about that," said Gene, "Bammo can't even grope a woman right. Aims for her chest and ends up fondling her ears."

"I never thought I'd see the day," Alex said, "Gene Hunt listens to his conscience."

"And if you tell anyone then there will be none of _this,"_ he pointed to the diagram, "and _this,"_ he indicated a part of his anatomy, "will be going nowhere near _this."_ He concluded by aiming his finger towards her.

Alex raised an eyebrow.

"I would believe that if you weren't resembling Simon's trouser tent already," she said.

"Bollocks," Gene covered himself up with the posters.

"Yes, those too."

She followed him as he walked through to the kitchen and picked up her notebook.

"So, Lady B, what are you scribbling about today?" he asked.

"I'm trying to draw up a timeline," she said.

"Sounds like some kind of Red Dwarf crap, you might want to take this to Shoebury," said Gene.

"No, a timeline of events," said Alex, "changes. Things that are happening differently now."

Gene shook his head.

"I don't like your lists, Bols. They always seem to end up with someone going to the pub or going to some other time or some other metaphysical bollocks that I can't be doing with."

"Important issues, you mean," said Alex.

"Metaphysical crap," Gene corrected.

Alex sighed and took the note book from Gene. She picked up her pen and pointed to things in turn.

"Some time earlier this year," she began, "Keats came back. He stayed out of sight until Simon and Robin turned up, going unseen through Kim.

"And the bloody backseat of my car," Gene pointed out, his skin turning red with fury.

"Then Simon and Robin arrived. Mid to late October."

"Oh great, the Gruesome Twosome, just what anyone wants on their list."

"And almost right away, I started becoming… unwell," she carried on, "I'd felt a little funny on and off but it was as though their arrival was the catalyst for me waking up in the real world."

"You were probably desperate to get away from the invasion of geeks," said Gene.

"Gene, I'm serious here," she looked at him and her expressionbecamea little anxious, "I hadn't tied it in before but what if Robin and Simon's arrival set off something that pulled me back there?"

Gene studied her face. He swallowed.

"You didn't say home," he observed.

"What?"

"You said 'pulled me back there', not 'pulled me back home.'"

Alex felt her heart flutter a little in her chest. It had just been a slip of the tongue, just a momentary thing, but he was right. She hadn't been thinking of 2011 as her home. There was a part of her that felt an enormous sense of guilt about that. She knew she had a daughter who would feel complete devastation to know that her mothers' heart was choosing a different life over her. But time had put a distance between them and she felt incredibly engrained in 1995.

"Either way," she said quietly, not wanting to dwell on that part, "why did it happen then? Why not sooner? Or later?" she looked at her notes. "Worlds keep colliding, Gene," she whispered, "they've never felt so close before." She found her hand trembled a little as she looked at her notebook. "What if they were too close and that's how they came over together? What if that's why I was pulled over, then pulled back? It's not like hopscotch, I can't just leap from one box to another." She closed her eyes momentarily. "If Robin crossed over and back like Simon thought he had… and parts of me went back and forth… our times came together, ran parallel, like in Keats's flat. We both felt each other there, Gene." She looked back at him. "if worlds were overlapping that could explain why Simon's been seeing glimpses of Robin and Kim. How you heard the radio."

Gene stared at her. He felt a cold shiver travel down his spine. It made him literally shudder a little at the shoulders as he stared at her notebook.

"Worlds colliding," he muttered.

"Gene," Alex said quietly, "can people end up on the wrong side of the line?"

Gene just stared on in silence. He didn't know.

"I didn't think so," he said quietly after a while.

Alex hesitated.

"But now?"

He took a deep breath. He wasn't sure he wanted to answer that.

"Tell me yer thinking here, Bols," he said.

Alex wasn't even sure herself.

"Something's not right," she said quietly, "Simon and Robin,…somewhere there I don't think everything is as it should be. Someone's in the wrong place. I don't know who or how or why. But something's gone wrong."

"What should be unbreakable has been split down the middle," Gene said as he sank into a chair

"That's a bit deep from you," Alex remarked but it was only to cover up her nerves.

"I told you, Drake, hidden depths," said Gene.

Alex sat down beside him. His brow was furrowed with worries that he wasn't sure he could face.

"Could," she began, then she hesitated. She wasn't sure she wanted to know the answer to the question she was about to ask, "could I… If the two worlds are coming closer together," her voice trembled, "could I… could I be pulled back over? Even if…" she swallowed, _"if_ I wanted to stay here?"

Gene looked away. He didn't want to answer her question. He wasn't even sure that he could. Finally he said a little bluntly.

"Don't know. There'd no prescient for this."

"In theory?"

Gene looked up at her.

"In theory I could handcuff you to the headboard to make sure you don't go anywhere," he said.

Alex's heart sank as she knew what he wasn't saying. She ran her tongue around her lips as they suddenly felt incredibly dry, then began nervously,

"What sort of thing could send me back, Gene?" she paused. "If I had an accident? Keats comes at me with a gun again? Or something simpler?" She paused, "well, to be fair, we don't know if I'm still alive…"

"You've got a ticking watch," Gene realised he was in need of some scotch rather suddenly and reached for his flask, "you're still alive." He shook his head slowly. "No idea what condition you're in out there, Bolly. Your body might resemble a car crash or it could be fit and well and the only thing keeping you here is," he paused, "you."

Alex felt herself deflating. The more she thought about it, the more risk there seemed to be that she could be pulled back to the other side at any time. She'd fought so hard to get back to Gene, she didn't think her heart could take being wrenched away again.

"Do you think," she asked slowly, that the worlds pass closer together when someone goes back?"

Gene still had no answers for her.

"Possible."

"Is it possible," she whispered, "I could get pulled back if someone else goes?"

Gene didn't think so but the way things were going anything was possible.

"I'm just going to revisit my handcuffs idea," he said.

Alex looked down.

"I'm starting to feel scared, Gene," she said quietly.

Gene made his face neutral. He looked at her and took a deep breath.

"You do so much speculating you might as well go and work on Wall Street, Missus Fruitcake. Yer brain's been working overtime and you need to stop before we both go round the bloody bend. I don't know what's happening, Bols. _You_ don't know. _Simon_ doesn't know. The woman with the fat arse in the _canteen_ doesn't know. But you're staying put. That's one thing I'll tell you for certain. Not letting you slip over to some two thousand and bollocks year again."

Alex tried to smile but found it was difficult. She appreciated Gene's sentiments but couldn't shake the fear that something would happen and she'd find herself on the wrong side of the line. As much as she was reluctant to admit it, she had made her decision. Her heart ached for Molly and there was a lot of guilt attached to her desire to stay in 1995, but the half of her that was strongest was the half that wanted to stay with Gene and it was making its voice well and truly heard.

"I don't understand the rules any more," she said quietly.

Gene shook his head.

"They need to publish a new manual," he tried to joke but inside he was sighing. Alex's list had only served to make him worry about things more. He knew he'd do anything to keep Alex where she was but he didnt even know where to begin.

_Where's Shoebury and his bloody metaphysics when you need him? _He thought.


	108. Chapter 67, 1995: Gemendo

_**A/N: Second chapter tonight!**_

**Chapter Sixty Seven**

Maybe it was the alcohol. Perhaps it was his talk with Alex. Or could it even have been the sprouts? Whatever it was, something had gotten into Simon's head and turned it upside down. Since his nightmare about Keats had stopped plaguing him and Alex had returned home he'd been nightmare-free but Christmas night was the exception.

It wasn't a clear dream. There were snippets, momentary snippets of things that he could hardly make sense of. Like the clicking of a camera, capturing tiny moments in time.

It was as though he could see through someone else's eyes.

At a desk. Pile of papers. Knock on the door. Eye line rises.

Through the door, a man in uniform… sound hardly there… just snippets of words.

"…_to CID, there's… needed for a man hunt, it's…"_

The eye line rose higher in an instant, like the person jumped to their feel, then blackness covered the scene and a new image began.

A wood… overgrown foliage… the barking of dogs.

_To black. Fade out, fade in._

A doorway; a board moved to one side

"…_been here already…"_

And once again to darkness, the sound of a voice, a muffled female scream, the sound of something that could have been a punch.

Vision on. A room. Familiar, but distorted. Where,,,?

"_Someone's been here…"_

And then a photograph. A man and a woman. _He_ looked… familiar. But impossible to place. Who could it…

Nope, gone again. _Moving on._ As quick as a flash, to another image.

Someone… tied. Gagged. So dark, can't see… why is it so dark…?

As a car boot closed over the face he got his answer and a rude awakening at the same moment. He sat bolt-upright, heart pounding, palms sweating.

"_Shit!"_ he breathed, desperately trying to force some air into his lungs. He tried desperately to put the nightmare into some kind of context but it baffled and bewildered him. He looked around. There was no sign of Kim. Damnit, just when he could have done with someone to tell him to stop being a weedy moron, too. With a sigh he got out of bed and began to walk to the kitchen, still wearing all his clothes from the day before.

There was Kim, sitting at the table, mug of coffee in hand.

"Hey," she smiled.

"Wondered where you'd gone," said Simon.

"I thought I should get out your room so you didn't get confused when you woke up with a woman in your bed for a second time," said Kim.

"Yeah… think I might know what happened there," Simon began, sitting beside her, "I think my memory's coming back a bit. I remember a thing about Gene."

"I know what kind of 'thing' you have about Gene," said Kim.

"I remember him undoing my buttons," Simon carried on.

"That's just the kind of 'thing' I was talking about," said Kim,

"And I also remember Alex asking if it was 'a good idea'…" Simon concluded.

Kim began to nod slowly.

"Ah," she said, "I see now. Suddenly it becomes clear."

"Hmm," Simon leaned back in the chair, "I don't know what he thought he was going to achieve. If he was trying to make us think we'd slept together a few shirt buttons wasn't very convincing."

"Not his best work," Kim agreed.

"Jim Keats he ain't," said Simon, recalling Keats's horrific set up back home.

"And that's a good thing," Kim shuddered.

Simon breathed deeply for a moment. He didn't want to think about Keats if he could possibly help it. He might have been lying unconscious in hospital but he'd left a very lively trail of fear behind him.

"Do you want any breakfast?" he asked after a while.

Kim pulled a face.

"No thanks," she said, "I've still got ten tons of sprouts dancing through my guts."

"Yeah, I could smell that last night," Simon wrinkled up his nose.

"You cheeky git!" Kim threatened him with a raised hand but relented as he laughed.

"Boxing day," he said, recalling the pro-Boxing Day propaganda he heard on the radio a few days earlier, "hey, _Bask _will be open tonight. You fancy it?"

Kim groaned.

"Have you forgotten how much we had to drink yesterday?" she said.

"I'm now a hundred percent hangover free," said Simon.

"Well me too but I still don't feel like pumping more beers into my system!"

"What's happened to you? You've lost your sense of fun."

"What's happened to _you?"_ Kim countered, "all you want to do is drink now."

"Not _all _the time – I just want to have a night out," said Simon, "forget some stuff."

"Stuff? Like what stuff?"

Simon sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. He really, really missed having those curls to mess about with when he needed a distraction.

"Like nightmares," said Simon. He shook his head a little. "Just a weird one. But it's bothering me. Lots of cops in uniform. Someone screaming, and," he flinched as he thought about the gagged face in the boot of a car, "just horrible stuff."

"Sounds like you want to skip the alcohol and get a clearer head," said Kim as she sipped her coffee.

Simon shook his head.

"And another thing," he said, "I hate Boxing Day. I've _always_ bloody hated it. It's shit! Oh yeah, we're all supposed to pretend to enjoy it just because it's a bloody bank holiday but all the good stuffs over. There's always that one present left under the tree from the day before from your least favourite aunt who's going to come round on Boxing Day morning to see you open it in person before leaving a trail of lipstick marks over your cheeks, ruffling your hair and calling you 'cheeky chops'. And then she always bloody stays for lunch."

Kim folded her arms.

"Great, a Shoebury tirade!" she commented. She actually quite enjoyed these. She wished she had some popcorn though.

"And there's no worse lunch than a Boxing Day lunch," he continued, "it's always _cold cuts,"_ he said 'cold cuts' in a funny voice, "or, worse – sprouts. Re-heated sprouts. Sprouts made into soup, or some kind of quiche. And then afterwards you think she's going to go home, but – No! She wants to stay and play bingo. Play bingo on the little bingo set you got when you were six years old and your dad made you keep because his sister loves playing family bingo so much every Christmas that she would be mortified if you didn't play it with her!"

Kim watched in amusement. She raised her eyebrow.

"Well at least you'll be safe here," she said. "No aunt. No bingo."

"The other me isn't safe though," Simon mumbled., He knew there was a seventeen year old version of himself with lipstick all over his cheek at that very moment and shuddered.

"I think you have issues, Simon." Kim's shoulders rise and fell as she pretended not to laugh, "deep-seated issues."

Simon gave a sigh and leaned forward.

"Come on, Kim," he said, "let's go to Bask tonight. Take my mind off the crappiness of boxing day. "

Kim stared at him and felt herself slowly bending to his will. She didn't feel like a night out but didn't want to see him heading off alone either. He was taking a little too well to the drinking thing, which worried her a little, and didn't want him waking up with his head stuck in a traffic cone.

"Alright," she sighed, "I'll come."

"Excellent," Simon's face lit up. "Call Lindsay. Ask her if she wants to come too. Tell her to bring those two guys from uniform who do the arse-juggling routine."

Kim didn't know what the arse juggling routine was and she didn't think she wanted to know either.

"How about if I just invite Lindsay, yeah?" she said a little nervously.

"Your loss," said Simon. He was just pleased to have some company for a night out.

As he got up to make himself a coffee and watched Kim taking the phone into the lounge to call Lindsay his mind went back to his nightmare and to all the strange things he'd been seeing of late. When had they started? Was it when he saw Robin in the car beside him? He thought that was the beginning but when he thought back he recalled the radio dedication from Robin, the day the wrong Alex woke up in 1995. How had he received a dedication from Robin? That made no sense at all. In fact, very little made sense any more.

Something started to worry him. He recalled his recurring nightmare from weeks previously. The nightmare that built and built into a clearer picture in his mind and finally started to make sense before being explicitly enacted in real life. Chasing Keats, the bullet hitting Kim, the car, Robin, Alex – eventually every detail of that nightmare came to life before him.

"What of this one does too?" the words left his mouth before he could stop them as a tortured whisper. Was he seeing a glimpse of the future? If it was, it felt so much more disjointed than the last time. Perhaps this _was_ only a nightmare. Maybe it wasn't anything more than that. A figment of his imagination caused by too much booze and conversations with Alex which really were far too deep to be had over the festive season.

He heard a click and a strange fizzing sound behind him. Instantly his heart rate shot up and he spun around anxiously.

"What the hell?" he whispered.

He couldn't work out at first where the sound was coming from until he tracked it down to the radio. He rushed across to it to switch it off but it wasn't on. He tried to unplug it from the mains but it wasn't even plugged in.

"Batteries," he mumbled turning it over and the static began to give way to voices, but he opened the compartment to find it was empty. "What…?"

The volume of the static increased, to the point where it hurt his ears but he couldn't seem to wrestle the volume down. He gave a little screech in frustration and fear, then as the static reached a crescendo a voice seemed to burst through in fits and starts. Three words, a din of static between them but none the less they were there.

"_Miss –"_

"_- you -"_

"_- too."_

Then, nothing, Radio silence. Dead air. Dead radio.

Simon slid to the floor with the appliance in his grasp. He breathed deeply in and out, clutching onto the device as though for dear life, like clinging to a floatation aid in the middle of the ocean.

"Oh _shit,"_ he breathed. His pulse had shot up and his hands were trembling as he stared at the radio, daring it to tell him how it had just performed such an act. He closed his eyes and leaned back against the cupboard, knowing full well that Kim was about to return at any moment to ask him what all the fuss was about and chastise him for hearing things and drinking too much the day before.

He didn't know how it was possible but he knew whose voice it was.

"How the fuck are you doing this, Robin?" he whispered.

He'd seen him. He'd heard him. He'd read about him.

But he still couldn't reach out and touch him.

Without the sense of touch, he felt like he had nothing at all.


	109. Chapter 68, 1995: Poetico

_**A/N: What a surprise – two chapters tonight! Shock, horror! Remember, Whispering Her Name ends on Sunday. I am thinking of baking a cake in celebration – I have sugar stars!**_

**Chapter Sixty Eight**

"My… fucking… _head…"_

Simon crawled to the kitchen from the corner of the lounge he'd passed out in the night before. He couldn't remember much about it, other than he'd changed all the lyrics of all the songs to being anti-Boxing Day propaganda and Kim had gone home early because she'd had enough of his singing. He had vague memories about trying to have a conversation with Lindsay about… what was it? Trousers or something. But the music was too loud so they'd tried to conduct it in sign language and it hadn't gone very well.

He wasn't sure how he got home. There was a tyre track over one of his legs but that could have been from anything.

"Morning," Kim said loudly into his ear as he slithered onto a chair at the table.

"Can you keep it down? I've only just got my brain to stop rattling," Simon said quietly.

"I warned you not to go out last night," said Kim.

"And where did _you_ get to?" Simon demanded, "Turning into a bloody lightweight!"

"I told you before, Simon," Kim sighed, finishing some cereal, "I've been there, done that, got the t-shirt, puked in the curb. It's not all it's cracked up to be. You're two pints away from getting your nose pierced."

"Whatever," mumbled Simon as he reached for the ibuprofen that Kim had already left out for him. He took two and groaned. "Back to bloody work."

"Hey, be grateful the criminal population of Fenchurch were all enjoying their Christmases too," she said, "otherwise there would have been far less holiday and far more work."

"I suppose," sighed Simon. He really was not in the mood for going back to the station. For one thing, quite aside from the constant banging of his brain which was trying to get out of his skull he was terrified of going near the leather shop. Twice he'd heard voices outside there. He still couldn't place them but had a horrible feeling it wouldn't be the last he'd hear of them. At some point Gene was bound to send him out for Lattes and that damn shop was going to be there, waiting for him to go by.

On top of that, his conversation with Alex had been churning constantly in his mind. As though their discussions about Robin hadn't been bad enough, the moment he remembered her asking him straight out if he had a crush on Gene he felt like crawling into a shoe and hiding for eternity. Now how was he supposed to look her in the eye? How was he supposed to look at _him?_ Some of the things she'd said made a lot of sense. He was looking for someone to make him feel the way that Robin did. Safe. Assured.

He felt awkward about his conversation with Alex about Robin and the way he'd changed too. It wasn't as though he didn't want Robin to grow, to gain confidence, to really find himself, but he felt so angry and resentful that he wasn't there by his side while he did so. They should have been together. He was more certain of that now than ever. And yet here they were, still separated by some great divide that seemed to wane and waiver at its own will.

"I've got to get to work," Simon mumbled, slinking off his chair.

"Don't you want breakfast?" Kim asked.

Simon's stomach lurched at the mere thought of food.

"No thanks."

"You didn't east last night either" said Kim.

"Wasn't hungry."

"That's probably how come you were so wasted."

"Like that's a problem."

"I didn't see you eat lunch ether," Kim commented.

Simon frowned.

"So?"

"So when was the last time you ate?"

Simon shrugged. He didn't really care.

"Can't remember," he said. Hunger didn't really bother him much. It was one of the few things that reminded him he was 'there'. Real. He'd been experiencing such an overload of emotions that he was starting to lose his footing on reality and the feeling of hunger helped to ground him.

"I think you should start eating properly," Kim told him.

"Dietician now, are you?" asked Simon, "what happened to the hard-living ladette? Bet you weren't living on poncey salads while you were living it up down the bar every night."

"No," said Kim, "I wasn't. But I wasn't swinging from overdosing on pizzas to not eating for twenty four hours either."

Simon grabbed his leather jacket and pulled it over his crumpled clothes. He'd have to change later.

"Look, Kim, there's no need to worry about me, he said, "I'm fine. Just worry about yourself. Don't forget to keep your piercings submerged in salty water or whatever it was."

"Saline solution," said |Kim.

"Same thing," said Simon.

Kim found herself sighing anxiously as she watched him leave. The Simon she'd known when he first arrived in 1995 was fading fast. While he was still the same honest, decent man, beneath it the drinking and the self-abuse were causing her an anxiety that she couldn't fight.

"Stay safe," she said quietly before she heard the front door open and close. She shook her head a little. They seemed to be swapping lives. "How long is it until I start wearing a jumper and quoting Red Dwarf?" she wondered.

~xXx~

Simon marched through the doors of the station feeling a little better than he had a few minutes before. Those Ibuprofen certainly got to work quickly on hangovers, he thought to himself. He was aware of one or two funny looks and the occasional nudge between others but he wasn't sure why and tried to ignore it. Someone he didn't know slapped him on the back and gave him a thumbs-up sign.

"_Curious,"_ he mumbled. This wasn't normal. He wondered if it was the leather jacket again. He'd had one or two unexpected responses just before Christmas after all.

"Way-hey!" someone called out, pointing at him from across the corridor.

Simon frowned.

"What?"

Someone else started snickering and pointed him out to her friend.

"_That's him,"_ he heard her whisper.

Simon froze. Something was going on, and he had a very bad feeling about it.

Behind him there seemed to be a group gathering around a notice board. It was a strange sight and one that piqued Simon's curiosity.

"What? What is it?" he asked, pushing his way through to the front of the little crowd, finding that everyone he pushed away laughed or smirked at him. As he finally reached the front of the gathering it was plain to see why.

"What…

…the…

…fucking…

…hell…?"

Simon exploded in fury.

~xXx~

"They're very, erm…"

"_Libellous?" _screamed Simon.

Alex bit her lip.

"I was going to say 'tasteful," she told him.

"_Watch your units,"_ Simon read from the poster, _"If One Too Many can turn Shoebury Straight then Imagine Where You Could End Up Sticking Yours?"_

Alex let a giggle escape before she could stop herself. She slammed her hand over her mouth and tried to fight it but it kept coming back in little bursts that caused Simon's angry scowl to deepen.

"Gene felt guilty," she said eventually when she had regained the power of speech, "He said he took them all back down."

"Yeah – shame he left the original in the bloody _photocopier!"_ cried Simon. He slammed his fists down on the desk on anger, "and of course Terry 'accidently' pressed the button and printed out some copies. _Fifty A-three sized copies!"_

Alex was in serious danger of giggling again. She spluttered and coughed and tried to turn her giggle into something a little less antagonising.

"Still he's captured your good side…"

That was it. She couldn't hold them back any longer. The giggles turned into guffaws and caused her chest to rise and fall in hearty laughter.

"What side would that be?" cried Simon, "my latent heterosexuality?"

"Really, Simon, it was just a joke…"

"I don't think Kim's going to find it very funny when she comes in to find a close up of her arse with my hands all over it pinned to every notice board in the station!" cried Simon. There were footsteps coming closer which ended as Gene appeared, spotted Simon's angry, red face and spun on his heels to make a sharp exit. "_Hunt!"_ He watched Gene freeze. "I want a word with you!"

"I was only trying to raise your profile…" Gene told him.

"Yeah? Sure you weren't trying to raise my blood pressure too?" cried Simon, "for fuck's sake, Gene! What did I do to deserve this?"

"Well, shall we start with the carol singing from hell?" said Gene, "or maybe the bloody sympathy vote in truth or dare? Or how about the Queen's bloody speech drinking game?"

"Difference is I didn't drag Terry, Bammo and Poirot over to watch you performing your little dares, did I? Public humiliation, Gene! How am I going to live this down? Between this and the trouser tent…"

"Think yourself lucky this has given you a bit of credibility!" said Gene, "They all think you've pulled a member of the dungaree brigade. You're on the same level as Jimbo!"

"Why would I want to be on the same level as Keats for _anything?"_ cried Simon.

"Still, it's helped to bridge the Christmas-to-new-year gap, made life interesting around here," said Gene.

Even as he spoke he could hear hushed muttering of '_It's him!"_ from behind him.

"Interesting?" cried Simon, "Define '_interesting'_?" he shook his head. "Ooh, I wouldn't like to be you when Kim arrives and sees this, Hunt. She is going to absolutely kick your arse."

"On the contrary," Kim's voice came from somewhere across the room. It was filled with giggles and her expression was just as amused, "I think this shows real artistic merit." She had in her hands another copy of the poster, studying the detail. "The use of shadow and light in the pictures is stunning."

"You mocking me camera skills, Stringer?" Gene asked warningly.

"No, no," Kim laughed, "I especially like this part," she tried to stem her giggles, "I call it _Arse After Dark."_

"Kim!" cried Simon, "you of all people should be on my side!"

"Oh come on, Simon, it's _laugh or cry_ time here," said Kim.

"I know which side I'm on then," Simon told her crossly.

"Grow a sense of humour and a pair o' balls," Gene told him.

"I don't need to – you've already drawn them on for me!" cried Simon, Finally ripping the sheet in two and stomping pout of the room in an almighty strop.

Alex bit her lip and tried to fight another round of giggles.

"Oh well, I suppose there'll always be someone who ignores the warning campaigns at Christmas," she said with an innocent shrug.


	110. Chapter 69, 1995: Lusingando

**A/N: Tonight's second chapter – and a huge thank you to everyone who is still reading as the story nears completion at the weekend x**

**Chapter Sixty Nine**

"You try to give a man a reputation and what does he do? Throw yer beautifully crafted posters back in yer face!"

Alex could feel her eyes closing and her head lolling. She'd been listening to Gene rant for around an hour and it was starting to wear her out. It was funny how things had changed inside Gene's head from '_getting revenge on Simon to piss him off'_ to _'trying to give Shoebury some damn credibility'_. Which was, of course, a blatant lie.

"_Bolly!"_

His sharp tone brought her head back upright and her eyes opened fast.

"Hmm?"

"Am I keeping you awake?" Gene asked crossly.

"No, Gene," Alex sighed, "not at all, hooked on every word."

She hadn't been able to get her act together all morning. She still felt drained and out of sorts from Christmas. Perhaps it was a combination of the alcohol, abundance of food, stress of unwanted guests and over-exuberance in the bedroom but she was feeling pretty wiped out. She could hardly stay awake. She got to her feet and tried not to yawn.

"Where you going now?"

"Back to my office," sighed Alex, "there's a ton of paperwork that's landed on my desk from somewhere and if I don't get it done I won't be able to open the office door by tomorrow.

She sighed as she made her way to her office. The paper work was only half the issue. She really needed to find somewhere quiet to rest for a little while before she fell asleep walking down a corridor and someone accused her of suffering from narcolepsy.

She felt as little weird as she entered her office. She was spending less time in there lately. It was funny how more and more of her cases brought her right back to CID. Even in terms of work she and Gene couldn't be parted, she supposed.

As she sank into her chair she couldn't resist closing her eyes. Heaven help her if the Super came along. She couldn't help it though. Sleep had been there on the borderline for a while and she really didn't feel she had any choice but to give in.

As she sat back, her head began to rest to one side and a deep slumber penetrated her mind. It took her away, sent her on a journey through unconsciousness and into dreams. Or one dream, a dream that was born of something happening that day, not a million miles away from her. Another Alex, younger by years. Perhaps a little naïve and innocent, believing the wedding band on her finger would be sitting there forever. She wasn't to know how things would fall apart, or all the years she would spend bringing up Molly on her own.

_Molly_.

The little matter of her daughter. The guilt was there, and she knew it would never fade as long as she stayed in Gene's world. Just because she'd made her choice, didn't mean she loved her daughter any the less.

She could see herself on her dream, so much younger, life so full of promise as she sat upon the toilet, staring at the stick in her hands as the line slowly appeared. She saw her expression; heard the gasp emerge from her lips, saw the smile that began to take over her whole face.

As she watched herself leap up with a burning joy in her heart so she awoke from her dream with a start as a large latte thumped onto her desk.

"_Bolly!"_

_Molly!"_ she gasped.

Gene took a step back.

"Not the last time I looked.

Alex's heart was racing. She could feel tears there in her eyes, waiting for the cue to fall. She held her hand to her chest and breathed deeply, trying to calm down from her dream. She closed her eyes.

"Sorry Gene," she whispered.

She waited for him to make some kind of sarcastic remark but he stayed silent for a while. She felt his presence coming closer as he loomed over her and finally asked,

"What's wrong, Alex?"

Alex looked up at him. To hear her real name, she knew he was concerned.

"Nothing," she whispered, "just a dream. That's all."

"Sounded like a bad one."

Alex shook her head slowly and gave a very sad smile.

"No," she whispered, "it wasn't."

Gene looked about as confused as she'd ever seen him. But then Alex had a habit of confusing him at least once a day.

"Drink yer latte, woman," he said, "Had to go to bloody Latte Land meself, Shoebury's apparently _not at home to calls from DCI Hunt."_

Alex couldn't help laughing.

"Do you blame him?"

"I wouldn't mind but they've got his photo up in the shop as _coffee drinker of the week!"_ Gene ranted, "half the other customers are wearing bloody leather jackets, copying his style!"

Alex laughed again and looked fondly at Gene. He always managed to make her smile, even though nine times out of ten it was unintentional.

"Thank you for the coffee, Gene," she said.

"Drink it," said Gene, "and stay awake."

She smiled as she watched him leave, but once she found herself alone again her expression began to fall a little. She found herself staring out of the window and recalling her dream. Eying up the calendar on her desk a moment later she realised her dream had been an expression of something occurring_ right_ then. She remembered the day she discovered she was expecting Molly so well. It made her heart ache to think of it. One moment, on one day, had changed her whole life completely. But then, it wasn't the only 'moment' that had ever changed her life completely.

There were other 'moments' she could think of. The moment a bullet was fired. The moment she jumped from a window. Plenty more along those lines.

Her eyes darted back to the calendar on her desk again and she found herself biting her lip. An anxiety began to wash up inside of her as she studied the date and flicked back to November. She took a deep breath as her heart began to thump again and her eyes closed. A terrible, deep dark feeling washed over her.

"_Shit,"_ she whispered.

~xXx~

She felt certain everyone was watching her as she walked through the chemist's. All eyes were surely upon her. The two teenagers trying on make-up testers, the old man looking for pile cream, the woman with the wart who was looking for a suitable solution. All eyes fell upon her, so it seemed.

Of course, nobody was looking at her, No one even threw a glance in her direction but that's now how it felt to Alex.

She came to a standstill at the _Family Planning_ counter and felt herself starting to blush. Oh, it had been a _long_ time since she'd bought one of these. She couldn't remember the last time. Certainly not in Gene's world.

"These are so primitive," she mumbled, looking at the boxes marked with things like; _"Result in Five Minutes!"_ and _"Test as early as the day your period is due!"_

She felt like an embarrassed, ashamed teenager as she picked up a pregnancy test and hurried to the counter with it under her arm. She looked around and wondered about buying something else to distract from the test so she gathered up a bundle of Strepsils and plonked then on the counter too.

She turned a deep red as the man behind the counter eyed her suspiciously. She had never felt so self-conscious before.

"_Yes, it's a pregnancy test!"_ she snapped at him, angered by his strangely disapproving glare. But a moment later she was wishing she'd held her tongue.

"Ma'am?"

Alex froze. She closed her eyes and tried counting to ten in the hope that the voice she'd heard would go away but it spoke again.

"Ma'am? Are you OK?"

Cursing inside she slowly turned to see Kim at the front of the queue beside her, stocking up on hangover remedies for Simon. She tried to give her a smile but she failed completely.

"Kim," she said quietly.

Any vague hope she had that Kim might not have heard her loud announcement or not noticed the item went out of the window as the man on the till held it up and yelled to his colleague;

"_How much are the pregnancy tests?"_

Kim's expression was a picture. A mix of surprise, confusion, curiosity and concern. Was this a potentially happy event or otherwise?

"Yes," Alex said quietly, "I'm buying a pregnancy test."

Kim swallowed.

"It's none of my business," she said a little apologetically and looked away, "sorry."

Alex bit her lip bas the man on the till handed her the bag with her purchases inside.

"Rite of passage," she said awkwardly, "you buy the one you hope you won't have to use. I'm buying this now, I'll get back to the station and curse myself for not buying any…," her voice became fraught, "…_fucking tampons."_

"Are you alright?" Kim spoke quietly and her expression showed great concern.

Alex didn't speak. She _couldn't_ speak. Her lip waivered and she knew she was about ten seconds away from meltdown. Never before had she been so thankful for someone stepping in and taking control as Kim abandoned the hangover cures, much to the chagrin of the cashier who yelled "_Miss! Miss!"_ at her for several moments, and hurried Alex out of the store.

Alex closed her eyes for a moment as they stood outside the doors, then looked at Kim.

"I'm sorry," she said quietly.

Kim hesitated.

"So it's… not good news?" she asked quietly.

"Well not if it's positive, no."

"Are you sure?" asked Kim, "I mean, you don't know for sure how he'll react. Maybe the Guv will be happy?"

Alex swallowed.

"To be stepdad to the son of Satan? I sincerely doubt it."

It took a moment for the truth to click in Kim's mind.

"Keats?" she breathed. She watched Alex's brow begin to crease as she tried again to fight the wave of anxious tears that were coming her way, "oh… oh God, ma'am, no –"

Alex felt a lump in her throat that she couldn't swallow down. She didn't think Kim of all people would want to hear about this.

"I'd better go back to work," she whispered.

"No, wait," Kim grabbed her arm to stop her, desperate to show her that she wasn't alone, terrified by the implications of what she'd said. She felt a couple of raindrops land upon her face. They seemed to echo the glistening tears that were beginning to roll down Alex's cheek. "Please, don't walk away. You need…" she shook her head slightly, "you shouldn't be on your own." She hesitated. She felt like she was being far too forceful with a DCI that she still didn't really know all that well but her heart was aching over her memories of his miscarriage and her time at the hands of Keats and she could imagine a little of what Alex was going through. "We'll go to Latte Land," she said, "Come on."

She held her hand out as though preparing to escort a small child across the road. She wasn't sure why she did it. It seemed like such a strange gesture, but it was all she could think of. Alex looked at her a little confused, then down at her hand. Finally she reached out slowly and took it, hung her head and began to walk slowly beside her.

~xXx~

"There."

Alex looked up as Kim placed a large mug in front of her. She gave her a grateful but anxious smile.

"Thank you Kim," she whispered, lifting a small sugar sachet. She tried to open it but her hands were shaking so much she couldn't seem to tear the paper. "_Damn."_

"Alex, it's OK," Kim rarely used Alex's first name out of respect for her rank, but there were no levels of superiority here. She reached out and opened the sugar for her then watched as a trebling hand emptied it into the cup.

"I'm sorry, Kim," she whispered, "I can't seem to stop shaking."

Kim lifted her own mug and took a sip of her coffee. She's rarely been into Latte Land herself, except to pick up the occasional take-away latte for Gene. It was a nice enough place and she could quite see herself settling there of an afternoon sometimes. The poster of Simon as the featured _Coffee Drinker of the Week_ was a little off-putting but she could just about ignore that.

She tried to look Alex in the eye but she wouldn't hold her gaze.

"Are you late?" she asked quietly.

Alex wanted to avoid the question. She wanted to make a deliberately misunderstood comment such as _'no but I must be getting back_ soon' but she knew Kim wouldn't let her get away with that. Instead, after staying still and silent for a few moments she nodded very slowly.

"Yes," she whispered.

Kim could feel herself starting yo shake now.

"W-what happened?" she asked nervously, "I... heard something about a tape but… my memory… the shooting…" she felt a little flustered. Her memory gaps made her feel angry and frustrated.

"He took advantage of _that_ other version of me, renting out my body for a fortnight," Alex whispered. She lifted her spoon and tried to stir the coffee but she could hardly stir for shaking, "There was a tape. He recorded it. The whole thing. Gene saw it." She looked down. "_I _saw it too."

Kim swallowed hard. She closed her eyes for a moment. Was there a 'tape' of her in existence somewhere? God, she hoped not.

"I'm so sorry," she whispered.

"He told her not to worry about protection," Alex said quietly, "Told her if she thought it was all in her head then what did it matter?" she looked down and shook her head.

"Bastard," whispered Kim.

Alex stared into her cup. She didn't know if she could bring herself to raise it to her lips. Just the conversation was making her feel sick.

"Until _you_, we didn't know if it was possible," she whispered, "for one of us to even conceive. No one ever had before." She sighed." Well there was one time when Susannah was having fainting spells and though she might be pregnant but it turned out she had been practicing first aid on herself and tying her tourniquet too tight."

Kim bit her lip anxiously.

"I was the first?" she whispered.

Alex nodded.

"What if that's what he wants now? She whispered, "what if your pregnancy gave him some kind of twisted idea about passing on his genetics? An heir to the throne?"

Alex wasn't the only one who was starting to feel nauseous at the thought. Kim had to sit her cup down. She could feel her stomach churning around, with burning bile threatening to leap up at any moment, spurred on by her disgust and anger.

"He didn't mean to get me pregnant," she whispered, "he didn't know. I'm sure of that. Even _I_ didn't know."

"But it could have triggered an idea in his head," Alex said anxiously, "and even if not, there's no changing the fact that there was no protection involved."

Kim looked at her worriedly.

"What are you going to do if it's positive?" she asked.

Alex exhaled loudly. She didn't even want to consider that terrible possibility.

"Tell Gene," she whispered, "I'll have to. He'll know something's wrong as soon as he sees my face."

"Are you absolutely sure there's no way it could _be_ Gene's if you were?" asked Kim.

Alex gave a tiny shrug.

"It's true we haven't been quite as… _safe_ as we used to be since I got home," she said, a blush spreading across her cheeks as she thought about her strange increase in libido, "but… but the timing," she shook her head.

"Remember, Alex, you've been through so much," Kim leaned forward a little, "you were shot, someone else came hitch-hiking in your body and then you were in a car accident. There are all kinds of reasons you could be late."

Alex sighed. She gave up on the thought of drinking her coffee completely now. She pushed her mug away and said,

"I know. But I can't get it out of my head. I didn't even think about it until today, when I realised…" she closed her eyes and flinched a little.

"What's the matter?"

"My daughter," Alex whispered, "Molly. It was this day – this very day in this very year that I found out I was expecting her"

Kim closed her eyes for as moment as she sighed. It made a lot of sense now. She could understand why Alex was so scared.

"Things don't always have to follow a pattern, Alex," she said quietly, "just because that happened the first time around, doesn't mean you're going to get a line again today."

"I know," Alex said quietly, "I just," she took a deep breath, "I just haven't been this scared in a very, very long time."

Kim could feel herself becoming more anxious too.

"I know," she whispered. She looked at the public toilet at the back of the shop. "Do you want to get it out of the way?"

Alex hesitated, fear surging inside of her. She found herself shaking all over again and the thought of knowing for sure made her stomach churn.

"I don't know if I can face it," she whispered.

"I could come in with you?" Kim suggested, a little hesitantly.

"Oh god, can you imagine if Gene walked in and saw that?" Alex actually gave a laugh, "he'd think we were going for an X-rated version of that dare!"

Kim had the good grace to blush as she recalled that moment from Christmas day.

"Seriously, Ma'am, would you like someone with you?"

Alex thought very carefully for a moment. She shook her head and grasped her chemist's bag.

"No," she whispered, "thank you, Kim, but," she sighed. "I need to do this alone."

Kim bit her lip.

"Are you doing it now?" she whispered.

Alex wasn't sure. She breathed in deeply and tried to calm the beating of her heart. Eventually she got to her feet, the bag in her hand and nodded slowly.

"Let's get this over with," she whispered.

Kim felt hear own heart starting to race as she saw Alex beginning to march towards the toilet. Her fear for her friend, her anxiety about the implications and the memory of all she'd been through were all weighing her down.

"I'll be waiting right here," she told her.

Alex flashed her a thin smile, then carried on walking towards the toilets. Who knew what awaited her? Either way, there was no changing the past.

~xXx~

Bag hidden, into the cubicle, door slammed, heart racing,

_No one saw, did they? No one saw me clutching the bag._

_Tampons. I'll just say it was tampons._

Grab the box, unwrap it, open it, out comes the test.

_Bloody instructions… blah blah blah, pee for five seconds, sit and wait while having a heart attack for five minutes and then look at the result. Brilliant._

Pants down, test ready, here we go.

_Its time_

~xXx~

Kim wondered if she was even more nervous than Alex. She thought that was probably a stupid thing to wonder – she wasn't the one about to take a test that could ruin the rest of her life, but it was the _been there, done that_ feeling that was killing her inside. Thoughts of her terrible miscarriage, Keats's words afterwards, the way he reacted when he realised what he'd done – they still haunted her, usually when she least expected it.

She stared at the clock as the minutes passed. _One, two, three_. How long did these things take anyway?

Four minutes, five minutes –

She watched the door anxiously. She wished she'd gone in with her anyway. At least she would have had someone with her in case of the worst.

In case she –

The door opened and Kim found herself instantly on her feet, rushing towards it. Alex emerged with a trail of tears down her cheeks and Kim's fears began to overflow.

"Oh God, Alex, _no,"_ she cried,.

Alex shook her head quickly.

"No," she whispered, "No, no," through the tears a world of relief began to break through, "it's that other rite of passage," she whispered. Kim looked at her curiously, "starting your period while you're peeing on the stick."

Kim's eyes closed with relief.

"Oh, thank _God,"_ she whispered. Without even thinking she put her arms around Alex and gave her the warm, soothing hug that Alex didn't even realise she needed. Suddenly Alex wasn't finding it so hard to equate this young, immature Kim with the level-headed, grown-up Kim she'd met in 2011. This wouldn't be the last time that Kim would be there for her. A part of Alex longed to tell her that, but she know Kim would find out for herself in good time.

For now, all she could do was to let her warm embrace take away some of the terrifying anxiety that had taken hold of her and to remind herself again and again that her worst fears had not come true. There was be no little devil running around for now.

_And I really wish I'd bought those bloody tampons now, _she added silently


	111. Chapter 70, 1995: Modesto

_**A/M: The first chapter tonight – and tomorrow sees the conclusion of this story! Ooh, my time is almost over, I'm seeing stars!**_

**Chapter Seventy**

_Time flies when you're having fun._

It was a strange saying and not one that seemed particularly appropriate, Alex thought as she finished brushing her hair and started applying her make-up. Sometimes the week between Christmas and the New Year seemed to drag its feet and go as slowly as it possibly could do but this time it seemed to have sped by.

Not that it had been an especially fun-packed week. The highlight had been Simon's reaction to Gene's revenge. Gene suspected that Simon would attempt some revenge of his own at some point, but he was ready and waiting when or if it occurred.

Alex was getting over the terrible fears that she'd had of pregnancy. The whole thing had stirred up some dormant feelings inside of her, ones that she wasn't sure how to handle. Although it had taken a couple of days to do so she'd finally plucked up the courage to tell Gene what she had been through. He'd sat in silence throughout her words of fear, thinking, brooding, contemplating. Then when she finally came to the end of her speech he sat up and drew her close, not saying a word. He didn't need to. He knew words wouldn't do any good, and that his arms would say everything he wanted to anyway.

But there had been more to it for Alex. Things she hadn't felt able to voice yet. The memory of reaching the time when she discovered she was expecting Molly had brought back so many emotions, and her Jimbo-riddled pregnancy scare had stirred up a few feelings that had lain dormant for a long time. She had realised that she was pretty much never going to have another child. The subject of children had never come up for her and Gene. It was just something that was never going to happen. She'd always expected to return to her old life, to Molly, and she didn't want to leave a child behind. But now that she'd made a choice and knew her heart was buried in 1995 she couldn't help but feel a pang of regret that they'd never even discussed it.

She couldn't see Gene as a father. That was one thing she could say for certain. She couldn't imagine him changing his lifestyle to suit a family scenario. He wasn't exactly an upstanding role model for a young child. She couldn't picture feeding a baby from a bottle with one hand and Gene from a flask with the other.

In the past it had never been an issue because she quite simply assumed it wasn't possible. Never the less, they'd spent years practicing safe sex, but suddenly since she'd returned home neither of them had even brought up the matter of condoms. Why? Why was that? Had anything changed for Gene?

"Not sure I want to spend the last day of this hellhole year listening to Shoebury warbling Auld Lang Syne down me ear," Gene's gruff comment interrupted Alex's thoughts as he wandered into view in the mirror, attempting and failing to tie his bowtie.

"Oh, look at the state of that," sighed Alex, "here, let me."

She got to her feet and helped him to tie it.

"It's not the same down there any more," Gene told her.

"_Bask?"_ Alex sighed and shook her head. "Different crowd."

"Too much _Shoebury Singing,"_ said Gene.

"That too," said Alex.

Gene sat down beside her, automatically helping her to fasten the back of her dress without her even asking. It was often as though they didn't need to speak… although Gene wished that was the case when Alex put lists together too. Her last list had been playing on his mind for some time. He knew that there was little chance of some of her thoughts being possibilities but he couldn't push out of his head some of the things she had said. What if she _did_ get pulled back to her old life and her old body against her will? Or something did happen and her other body was stronger then she might not have a say in the matter.

"So, Bols," he began with a sigh, "did we thrive in ninety five?"

"Bit late for cheesy advertising slogans, isn't it?" asked Alex, "there's only four hours left of the year."

"Alright, will we be sick in ninety six?" Gene tried.

"That doesn't even work."

"Come up with yer own bloody slogan then, woman."

Alex got to her feet as she checked her reflection in the mirror. She was looking a little more like her old self now. Her old self, with a new twist. Her hair had given her a confidence boost, she had colour back in her cheeks and despite her fears the bullet wound was starting to heal up fairly well. She's gained a little weight back over the festive season, sprouts notwithstanding, and Gene was a little more approving of her cleavage again. More than that, she was feeling more like her old self too.

Perhaps they would never quite put the strange few weeks behind them but things were moving on and heading for a more positive time. Despite their worries about the way the world was changing they both knew that, if nothing else, they'd be facing it together.

Something else they would be facing together was Simon's singing.

"He's taking over all me territory," Gene mumbled as they prepared to leave, "Even bloody Latte Land! Maybe Jimbo was right to call him Mini-Hunt."

"Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery," Alex said with the sole purpose of winding him up.

"_Flattening_ someone is the most sincere form of doing 'em in," Gene countered.

"You wouldn't flatten him, you'd have no one to pick on," Alex pointed out.

"That's true, Lady B," sighed Gene. He opened the door and awaited Alex's approach. "Come on. Let's go and tell ninety five to bugger off then."

"I don't think it needs that much encouragement, Gene," sighed Alex. She passed through the door as he held it open for her and prepared to wave goodbye to the most topsy-turvy year on record.

~xXx~

"Simon?"

"Hmm?"

"Did you and Robin ever think about having children?"

Simon glanced up. It seemed like a very random question.

"I don't think the maternity wear would suit me," he commented but Kim didn't seem amused.

"Did you ever talk about it?" she asked.

"Not really," frowned Simon, "we sort of both put work as a priority. We didn't really think that far ahead. Why?"

Kim shook her head a little.

"No reason," she sighed.

"Too random not to have a reason," said Simon.

Kim sighed again.

"I don't know," she said, "just a few things this week made me think about the future."

Ever since Alex had her scare earlier in the week Kim had been thinking about her miscarriage and the subject of children. It wasn't something she'd ever really thought about before. Like Simon and Robin, she and Sandra had only ever looked as far as developing their careers. She'd never really thought beyond that. Now she was starting to wonder what was ahead down the line.

"You want kids?" Simon asked her.

"Maybe" Kim said quietly, knowing full well she did.

"Well don't ask me to donate sperm, it doesn't travel through time," Simon commented as he pulled on his jacket.

"That's OK, I don't want kids with the nerd gene," Kim told him.

"Thanks a lot," cried Simon, "well, I hope you at least have the common decency to name one after me."

"Well that would be great if I have girls," laughed Kim.

Simon smoothed down what was left of his hair and looked at his reflection.

"What's got you all futuristic today anyway?" he asked.

"Oh, I don't know," sighed Kim, "new year… always get a bit contemplative. Thinking about what's happened in the year gone by and thinking about what's ahead."

"Worst year of my life," sighed Simon, "_death…_ whatever."

"Ditto," said Kim.

"Wasn't that a Pokemon?" asked Simon.

"Oh no, don't say you're a fan?" groaned Kim. "in fact, don't answer that. I'm better off not knowing."

Simon walked to the door and held it open for her.

"Madam?" he said grandly.

"You're such a bloody cliché," sighed Kim as she walked past, turned around, bowed deeply and announced mockingly, "Thank you kind sir," before they left together to wave farewell to a year that they were both so very glad to see the back of.

"And to think how much I loved this year the first time around," sighed Simon.


	112. Chapter 71, 1995: Mancando

_**A/N: Today's second chapter**_

**Chapter Seventy One**

Simon and Kim arrived to find _Bask_ already heaving.

"Knew we should have got here earlier," Simon told her, his voice raised above the music.

"Should have started drinking earlier, you mean," Kim said a little warily.

"I'll get these in," Simon told her, "what are you having?"

"I'll just have a coke," sighed Kim.

"Oh come on, you can't drink Coke, it's New Year 's Eve!"

"I don't really feel like getting pissed," Kim said, a little tiredly.

"I'll get you a beer."

"I don't want a beer," Kim told him but he was already heading to the bar. She gave a deep sigh and shook her head a little. She just didn't want to start drinking yet. She was so tired of that lifestyle and her Christmas exploits had just proven to her she was over her binge drinking phase. She wasn't even really enjoying the karaoke bar that much any more. The music was changing, the style didn't really seem to fit her suddenly.

She glanced around and saw Alex and Gene sitting at a table, looking as lost and out of place as she felt. She walked across to them slowly and sank into a spare chair.

"Bloody hell Stringer, you look like someone's just revoked yer licence to munch carpet," Gene said, as tactfully as always.

"Is it me or has this place gone…" she sighed, "_downhill."_

Alex leaned a little to her direction.

"It's not just you," she said quietly.

"You on the lookout for somewhere new?" asked Gene, "because we've been thinking about leaving the warbling to Shoebury and his harem."

"Harem?" Kim laughed. She glanced up to see a crowd of people gathered around him, dancing with him. Since when had Simon become so popular? Was it the haircut and jacket? Or maybe it was all the trouser tent propaganda. Some of the images had been _very_ generous after all. "It's just not the same here now," she said, "too many bad memories too," she thought about the nights Keats had accosted her in the bar.

"New year, new start," said Alex.

They fell silent as they all watched Lindsay almost splitting her trousers with the effort of singing _Earth Song_ until Simon made his way over and forced a pint on Kim.

"Shoebury," Gene cleared his throat, "The posters. No hard feelings?" he couldn't help smirking as Alex and Kim looked away politely to hide their giggles. A very angry Simon fixed a glare upon his face and stared at Gene.

"You just wait, Hunt," the use of his surname proving that Simon was a long way from forgiving and forgetting, "one day you'll be sorry. One day you'll get caught out with Alex in the back of the fiat and guess who'll be lurking with a camera?"

"First of all, ever since we discovered about the inclusion of Jimbo's love juice in the fabric of me backseat, I seem to have gone completely off the whole idea," Gene began, "and secondly, you have to get up pretty early in the morning to get one over on Gene Hunt." He got to his feet and bewildered Simon by announcing, "I'm going to buy you a drink."

"You… Is this a joke?" Simon scowled, "there's going to be little pictures of my trouser tent engraved in the glass, aren't there?"

"One time only offer, Shoebury, take it or leave it," said Gene as he walked to the bar.

Simon glanced at Alex and Kim who shrugged in confusion.

"Don't ask me," said Alex, "he wouldn't even buy _me_ a drink."

"He's going to put something in it, isn't he?" asked Simon, "Viagra or something. More humiliation."

"No, I think he's actually…" Alex shook her head at the strange, unusual concept of this, _"buying you a drink."_

Simon stared at Gene as he purchased two double scotches and walked back towards him.

"He… actually did," he said. He couldn't have been more confused if he tried.

"Walk with me," Gene said as he got back to the table and marched straight past.

Simon felt a little nervous as he followed him to an empty table in the corner and sat down. He mentally counted off the list of things he was awaiting a ribbing about – trouser tents, the jumper, Red Dwarf… He braced himself for some kind of attack as he watched Gene place a drink in front of him.

"I'm onto beer now," he said a little pointlessly.

Gene ignored him and supped his scotch.

"You seem at home here," he said.

Simon frowned.

"Where?"

"Here," Gene looked around him, "the bar."

"It's OK," said Simon.

"You seem to have yerself a bit of a following."

Simon shrugged. He felt a little like a kid being questioned by his parents before being allowed out for the evening.

"I've made some new friends," he said, not sure whether Gene was classing this as a good or a bad thing.

Gene nodded slowly.

"Me and Bols," he began, "we've been coming here so long we can tell you the cocktail menu backwards. And neither of us drink cocktails." He looked at Simon but saw only confusion on his face. "Think it might be time for us to move on."

"What do you mean?" Simon felt a little alarmed. Did Gene want him to stop going too?

"Might look at a couple of the new places down the street," said Gene. He looked at Simon. "You've found yerself a decent place here." He paused. "Look after it for us."

Simon wasn't completely sure what Gene meant at first. He stared at him a little expectantly, thinking he was going to carry on but he didn't say another word. A vague memory of something came back to him, from the day Gene took Malcolm to the Railway Arms and explained that Simon would find his own local in time. Was this it? He didn't know. But there was a look in Gene's eye that said his instruction to _'look after it'_ meant more than not trashing the karaoke equipment.

He nodded seriously.

"I will," he said quietly.

Gene nodded back and drank from his glass. He stared at it for a moment.

"Me present," he said, "the glass."

Simon had almost forgotten about that, Gene had been so disappointed with the kettle that Simon assumed he'd never opened the other gift.

"Oh, that," he said, a little embarrassed.

Gene looked a little awkward.

"Appreciate it, Simon," he said.

Simon gave a slightly nervous smile. He supposed that was as big a thank you as he would get from Gene.

"No problem," he said.

Gene played a little with the rim of his glass as he tried to ignore Simon sipping and pulling a face at his drink. He still couldn't get the hang of drinking scotch without gagging. He looked at him finally when he'd finished spluttering and said,

"What you did while Bolly was away," he looked down. "Thank you."

Simon looked at him a little confused.

"What do you mean?"

"Stopped me losing me marbles down a Keats-shaped drain," said Gene.

Simon smiled and gave a shrug.

"What else was I going to do?"

Gene looked at him grimly and Simon knew that there was a more serious side to the conversation coming up.

"Keats," he began.

Simon sighed. He didn't want to spend the last day of the year thinking about him.

"What about him?"

"Stuff you found out," Gene continued gruffly, "about 'im. Why he is the way he is." He hesitated. "Alex is not to know."

Simon hesitated.

"You haven't told her?" he watched Gene shake his head. "Don't you think she has a right to know, Gene?"

Gene exhaled and closed his eyes for a second. Then he looked back at Simon and began,

"If Jimbo was created from some sort of stupid sci-fi bollocks –"

"Opposite energy, Simon pointed out.

"And it was me who," he could hardly force out the words, "created that, then now it's not just me feeding him the nasties, is it?" he glanced back at Alex who was talking happily with Kim; laughing, joking. "He's getting it from her too. We're both making him the way he is." He looked back at Simon. "If you thought it would kill _me,_ imagine what it'll do to _her."_

Simon felt a lump in his throat and he looked down at his glass. He didn't think that keeping it a secret was a good idea in any respect but he couldn't see Alex going through the trauma of knowing, either. Finally he nodded.

"Well she won't hear anything from me," he said.

Gene nodded back.

"I appreciate it, Simon," he said. He finished the last of his scotch and sat the glass back on the table, then looked back at him. "Listen, I know nineteen ninety six wasn't the year you were hoping to be seeing in and I know you've been through some pretty ripe manure since you arrived. But you're doing OK." He got to his feet. "Glad you joined us, Shoebury."

He walked away to rejoin Alex and left Simon alone at the table, staring after him. It seemed that Simon's thoughts would never be able to straighten themselves out. They were constantly jumbling around and every time he had a conversation with Alex or Gene they seemed to just become further entangled.

"Simon?"

He was so deeply involved in his thoughts that he didn't hear the voice calling him at first. Finally he looked up to see Lindsay signalling to him urgently.

"What?"

"Come on, karaoke's free," she called across the room.

Feeling a little strange about getting straight back into the festivities after the deep conversation he'd just had Simon got to his feet and crossed the room to her, hesitating just before he went on stage.

"Hold on a minute," he said, grabbing a couple of karaoke forms, "just got something to do."

Lindsay stood by and watched him as he gave what appeared to be a mocking evil cackle best suited to a cartoon vampire in a kids' TV show, then joined her on the stage for a song.

"Not so much getting up early in the morning as late at night," Simon commented to himself with a smirk.

~xXx~

Gene had just finished singing _There's No One Quite Like Grandma._ He was about to start on _Snooker Loopy_. He'd already been forced to sing _I Lost My Heart To A Starship Trooper _and _Muscles_. Gene had argued strongly but according to the man in charge of the karaoke the little request slips were legally binding and Gene had already downed one scotch too many to realise he was talking ten tons of bollocks.

"Gene seems to be enjoying himself," Simon commented through gales of laughter that caused him to double over momentarily.

"Hmm," Alex narrowed her eyes at him, "and you wouldn't happen to know anything about these karaoke numbers that he seems to have 'forgotten' putting himself down for, would you?"

Simon put on his most innocent expression.

"Nope, not at all," he said.

"Hmm," Alex frowned, "he'd better not still be on that stage by the time midnight rolls around," she glanced at the clock and saw it was but minutes away, "otherwise there will be hell to pay."

"No, this is the last one," said Simon. He hesitated and bit his lip, "I mean, I imagine this would probably be the last one…"

Alex could hardly bear to look at Gene as he sang;

"_We'll show you what we can do with a load of balls and a snooker cue."_

"I suppose he deserved it," said Alex, "especially with all the new nicknames you've gained…"

Simon's cheeks grew red and a scowl appeared.

"And what new nicknames would those be?" he demanded.

"Um, nothing," It was Alex's turn to look innocent.

Kim glanced from Alex to Simon and when Simon finally turned around to watch Gene again Kim mouthed to Alex,

"What nicknames?"

Alex glanced at Simon to make sure he wasn't looking, then turned to Kim.

"_Mister Stringer,"_ she mouthed.

Kim didn't know if she should be amused or offended by that but laughed regardless.

"I believe there's a song about his trouser tent doing the rounds too," said Alex.

"Oh, I've heard that, said Kim, "it's rather good." She glanced at the stage. "I believe they have it on the karaoke actually…"

They watched as Gene's rendition of _Snooker Loopy_ came to an end and he stomped from the stage in a storm of fury. He made a beeline for Simon while the man in charge of the karaoke congratulated him for picking all the least popular tracks and clearing out half the bar.

"Shoe-Boy," his exoression made Simon double over with laughter again, "I want a word with you."

"Is that word – 'thanks'?" Simon guessed.

"Funnily enough, no," Gene began but the DJ interrupted him with a cry of,

"_Ladies and gentlemen, it's almost midnight! If you'd all like to turn your eyes to the television we can watch Big Ben as we welcome in nineteen ninety six!"_

All eyes turned to the screen as Angus Deyton on the _End of the Year Show_ announced they were going over to the bongs.

"Oh Mister Deyton, what your future has in store," Simon couldn't help remarking.

As the chimes rang out, everyone stopped.

Every person in the bar stopped walking, moving, talking – faces upon faces stared at the screen and a strange shiver travelled down Simon's spine. The changing of the year always made him feel strangely nostalgic and sentimental. He tried hard to fight it, but he couldn't. It was always there, every single year. He found himself swallowing so hard that he almost gulped as the start of the chimes rang out. It moved him in a way he couldn't really understand. He recalled the last New Year he'd seen, welcoming in 2010 with his family and Robin. Now it seemed a whole lifetime rather just a year ago. How could he ever have known want would happen in the months ahead?

The bongs reached their second stage. The _Bing bong bing bong_ part was over. Now it was time for the twelve chimes and the moment that the first struck the whole bar exploded with whoops and cheers as everyone welcomed1996 in whatever way they wished.

There were people hugging and kissing, some jumping for joy, other raising a glass in the air. There were some people cheering and shouting, others dancing, some even whistling to show their joy at the New Year.

And then there was Simon, who stood as still as stone, staring at the screen. Of anything, this was the most surreal moment of his time in Gene's world so far, seeing in a new year that he had first welcomed in so many years ago.

He suspected this was the first of many such strange new years ahead of him.

"Hey, Simon!"

Kim's bright voice shook him out of his thoughts.

"Hmm?" he looked at her.

Her bright smile warmed his heart.

"Happy new year, Nerd-face," she said, throwing her arms around him and planting a big kiss on his cheek.

It wasn't the way he envisaged seeing in the next new year, and it wasn't how he'd pictured his future but as he looked from Kim to Alex to Gene he realised that at least he would enjoy the company. He had friends here. Maybe, with time, he could even call it home.

Finally, he gave a smile.

"Happy new year, Kim," he said, and hoped that it genuinely would be.

~xXx~

"There's no sign of brain activity."

"Looks like this one's not going to be going anywhere for the New Year, anyway. Might as well take those men off the door."

"I think they're supposed to be there to protect him as much as stop him getting out. There are a few people who'd like to see the back of this one."

"From what I've heard I don't blame them."

"Anyway, it doesn't look like this one's going to be doing many crosswords in the future. They're trying to find some next of kin. Not enough going on in that head to warrant keeping him going. Persistent vegetative state."

"Can we stop thinking about some poor lifeless twat now and get off duty before they call us back to deal with some drunken reveller with a sausage through his leg? I want to at least catch the end of the celebrations this year."

"With pleasure."

As the doctors left the room and their footsteps faded the machines carried on whirring and the monitors carried in churning out their usual readings. Nothing ever changed, every day had been the same. On and on, forever and ever. There was nothing there. Nothing at all. Nobody home.

~xXx~

**2011**

_Beep._

~xXx~

**The End**

**Epilogues up tomorrow!**


	113. Epilogue, 1996: Sostenuto

_**A/N: So here we are at last - the final couple of chapters – a pair of epilogues!**_

**Epilogue**

**1996**

Alex sank onto the couch, removing all the things that were pinching her. Her shoes were pinching her feet, her earrings were pinching her ears and her bra was pinching her shoulders. _Definitely getting some more back up top,_ she thought to herself, fairly proudly as she watched Gene wandering towards her with a bottle of brandy and a couple of surprisingly classy glasses.

"What's that for?" Alex asked.

"Nightcap," said Gene.

Alex glanced at the clock.

"It's almost two in the morning," she sighed, fishing her bra out through the sleeve of her dress, "I think we'll sleep OK."

Gene wasn't sure whether to be impressed or daunted by her bra trick and decided to concentrate on working his way around to getting access to the parts that had been inside of it a moment ago instead.

"Well, nineteen ninety six," He said as he poured a little brandy into both glasses and handed one to Alex, "what does this fine year have in store for me then?"

"You ask me this every year and I always tell you to wait and see," said Alex.

"And then you always blab anyway so you might as well open up and spill," said Gene.

"I_ will_ be 'spilling' if I have many more of these," said Alex, sipping her brandy. She closed her eyes as the warming liquid filled her mouth and throat with smooth pleasure, then sighed as she thought about something. She wasn't sure whether to speak up at first. It was hard enough for her to accept herself, let alone to tell Gene about it but in the end she couldn't keep her mouth shut. "You know, tonight was the first time I hadn't said it," she whispered.

Gene frowned.

"Said what?"

Alex bit her lip and prepared herself for Gene to call her various names for what she was about to admit.

"I have a little ritual, Gene," she said quietly, "at the turn of the year I whisper to myself. I say the name of the year, then I ask it to be good to me." She paused to stare into her glass. "And I always ask that this be the year I go home to Molly."

Gene watched her silently. He found himself swallowing and waiting for her to carry on. When she didn't speak he found himself prompting her,

"And what did you say this year?"

Alex gave a little shrug.

"I didn't say anything," she whispered, "I want to see where life takes me. I don't want to know what's coming up."

Gene stared at her and felt some strange sensations in his chest as his heart started to beat harder and faster. Alex's words were making promises to his heart. He couldn't help but worry they were promises that she wouldn't be able to keep if something in the world overrode them, but he tried to push those thoughts from his mind and to focus on the bright side instead.

"It'll be a better year, Bolly," he told her, "you wait."

Alex smiled, but it was tinged with a little anxiety.

"I hope so," she whispered. She leaned against Gene as she drank more of her brandy and thought some more about the evening. "Gene? Do you think Simon will be OK?"

"What's that bloody Noel-Edmonds wear-a-like got to do with anything?"

"I'm just worried about him. That's all." She sighed. "He seems to be struggling."

"It's a big change, Bols," Gene reminded her, "hard to get used to. You remember that."

Alex gave a sigh and glanced down.

"Yes," she whispered, "I suppose I do." She paused. "And I had you. Simon doesn't have Robin here beside him. He's having to do this on his own."

"Give him time. He's getting there."

"The drinking worries me," Alex said quietly, "he'd looking a bit thin in the face, too."

"He needed some manning up," said Gene, "bit of booze won't hurt," but she could see from his expression that he was as little worried too.

"I suppose not," she said quietly and desperately tried to think of another subject. Luckily she didn't even need to. Gene already had a subject on his mind and he began to speak before he could change his mind.

"Last year was bloody terrifying."

"Getting barred from Latte Land?" asked Alex.

Gene shook his head. He wanted to make sure he had her attention for this.

"Thought I lost you for good. Twice."

Alex looked down.

"I know," she said quietly.

"Day you vanished was the worst of my life," Gene told her.

Alex swallowed. She wished she could say something. She wished she could take those terrible memories away from Gene.

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

Gene drank his brandy and sat the glad on the table, then looked at Alex.

"All these years you've tried to get back to Molly," he said, "I always told you I'd never try to get in your way. I'd never take you away from your daughter. I'd never ask you to do anything you didn't want to do."

"I know," Alex found herself tearing up a little. She swallowed, "you've _never_ asked me that."

Gene looked at her seriously.

"Things have changed though. Haven't they, Bolly?"

She stared at him. She could feel tears threatening to spill over.

"Yes," her voice was barely audible.

Gene Nodded. He looked her in the eye.

"_Stay,"_ he said.

Alex's eyes closed. And tiny shred of doubt that she's made the right decision faded away in that moment. She gave a choked sob and nodded blindly. She couldn't bring herself to open her eyes because she didn't want the tears to fall. She didn't want Gene to mistake them for sad tears.

"Yes," she whispered, "yes. I will. I'll do everything that I can to -"

She couldn't finish her sentence. She knew she's begin blubbing like a baby if she did so she just let her arms finish the job as they wrapped around Gene's neck. She laid her head against his shoulder and nodded, just to confirm what she'd already said. She knew that there was still an element of doubt, the dramatic changes that had taken place to the world had left them both feeling a little uncertain about where their future would ultimately lay. But she would do all she could to stay right where she was.

After a moment that felt like forever, Gene peeled her arms away and held her back a little so that he could look at her.

"I'm not letting you go again," he told her with a fairly stern note in his voice.

Alex swallowed quietly. She couldn't help but ask,

"How can you be sure, Gene? We don't know what's around the corner."

"I told you before, Bolly, I'm going to anchor you this time."

"How are you going to do that?" asked Alex. She thought about Simon during Nailer's arrest. "I suppose you could sit on me."

"I can to better than that," said Gene. He rummaged around down the side of the couch and pulled out a couple of shiny, metallic objects.

"You weren't serious about the handcuffs?" Alex couldn't help but giggle.

"Can't think of a better way."

She glanced at the clock.

"It's two o clock in the morning now!" she told him.

"Didn't think that would stop you," Gene commented.

He was right. It wouldn't.

"Bedroom. Now," she demanded as she got to her feet.

As he followed her, Gene knew they were only trying to make light of what was still an uncertain and delicate situation but it symbolised something far more. He was prepared to take any steps necessary to keep Alex where she belonged. And she _did_ belong with him, he was certain of that now.

If that was one thing they'd both learned then maybe something good had come out of a most terrible situation and a journey that had exhausted them both. The fact they'd both survived it and come from it even stronger was a testament to them both. To their strength. Their determination. To the friends and love that surrounded them and helped them to come through it at the other side.

They would never forget what they had been through, nor would they ever truly get over it. But they had survived, they were together and they were looking ahead to the future. Really, that was as much as they could ask.


	114. Epilogue, 2011: Coda

_**A/N: Finally – the last chapter! Can you believe it? Thank you to everyone who has made it this far! You deserve medals for your achievement!**_

~xXx~

**Epilogue**

**2011**

"Here you go," Robin looked like a slightly inept waitress as he whirled and twirled around the table with plates in his hands. One wrist was still a little tender but had more or less healed from his brush with the office door. Kim practically drowned in her own drool at the sight of the pizza. A rather large tattoo of _Sparky's Magic Piano_ had taken up almost all of her day and she'd missed lunch. Not that she'd been in the mood to eat after the constant impressions of said piano enacted by the man she was tattooing at the time.

It looked unlikely her appetite was going to last either as the _Dispatches_ logo came on the TV screen in the corner of the room followed by the words _Evan White: Where Did It All Go Wrong?_

"Of all the days you could have picked for this, it had to be the night they showed this bloody documentary!" she scolded.

"It was the only night we could all do!" Robin protested, "you know that!"

He disappeared to get the third plate from the kitchen as a familiar, annoying woman appeared on the screen.

"_In two thousand and eight, DI Alex Drake was shot in the head by known criminal Arthur Layton…"_

Kelly slapped her forehead as she stared at the screen. The hospital corridor in which the woman was standing seemed awfully familiar too.

"_Ro-bin?"_ she called in a sing-song voice, "I think you might remember this."

Robin arrived in the doorway, caught sight of the woman and scowled.

"Oh _no,"_ he sighed as he sat down at the table, losing his appetite with every second of television that passed by.

_"…And it was within this room that Evan sat by his goddaughter's bedside every day for two and a half years, keeping a terrible secret that it would take one terrible rooftop confrontation to reveal…"_

The shot changed very abruptly and both Robin and Kelly knew why.

"Aw, they cut out the part where you threatened them with your fist if they didn't stop filming," Kelly said with disappointment.

"Hmm, I wonder why," Robin tried to hide beneath his fringe which didn't really work.

"OK, what did I miss?" asked Kim.

"We may have encountered them filming," Robin coughed.

"_And in THIS room,"_ the woman on the screen continued, "_lies Arthur Layton, a one-time drug dealer who has been desperate and destitute for many years. His situation led him to make a blackmail attempt that would lead to the shooting of one detective, a tattooist and the eventual exposure of the lies of a famed beard model."_

"Do you actually want us to eat your food or what?" asked Kim, indicating the shamed beard model on the TV.

"My pizza is of such great quality that it overpowers the hideousness of the beard," Robin told her.

"Oh, bollocks it does," Kim laughed as she stated to tuck in, despite her anti-Evan stance.

In the weeks since the car accident and the immediate aftermath a warm friendship had built quickly between Kim and Robin. It reminded Kim uncannily of her friendship with Simon except that the ages were a little reversed, herself being a couple of years older than Robin. They were both busy people but they tried to meet up once a week, even if just for a coffee or a chat. It was their way of keeping Alex's memory alive, even though her body lay still and silent in the hospital.

That Robin wanted a tattoo had been quite a revelation to Kim. The fact that he wanted her to design a variation on her own for him had been flattering and touching – if a little unoriginal, which she had already chastised him for at the time.

"How's your tat doing, by the way?" she asked.

"Scabbing over," said Robin with a face.

Kelly laid down her knife and fork.

"A lovely subject of conversation for the dinner table," she said.

"What would Simon say if he knew about your act of rebellion?" Kim teased.

"It's hardly rebellion," said Robin, "besides, he's not going to see it for a very long time, is he?" he momentarily realised that he and Kim weren't alone this time and tried to think of a way to cover it up but Kelly seemed not to have heard. In fact, she often seemed _not to hear_ when they let something slip.

In the aftermath of the strange events the three of them had been through to help Alex there had been changed for all of them. Robin began his new post almost immediately and took to it like a duck to water. A new office awaited him, one with a door that didn't seem to have it in for his wrist, and his new work proved challenging and interesting enough to help keep his mind away from missing Simon a little. Alex too. He'd felt a terrible wrench initially. They'd grown close in a very short space of time. With all they had been through it was inevitable really.

He wasn't the only one with new career paths opening up to him. For her role in the events and for saving Kim's life Kelly gained recognition and received her own promotion, while Robin had helped Kim take the first steps towards seeing a return to the force. She was still feeling nervous about the decision and couldn't bear the thought of giving up the tattooing completely so a part-time arrangement was agreed to. She would have to start again as a detective constable but her previous excellent record insured that her previous station was keen to take her back.

There was much to celebrate at the famed 'reunion dinner'. Sadly, one of the things to celebrate was _not _the excellent television that night.

"…_and on New Year's Day, two thousand and eleven, Detective Inspector Alex Drake awoke from her two and a half year coma to the delight of her beloved daughter Molly, her doting godfather Evan and her close friends."_ The annoying woman's face fell dramatically. She was good at that look. "_But within a month the amazing medical recovery of Drake would be overshadowed by the scandals that plagued Evan 'The Beard' White."_

"Oh my god, they've given him a nickname!" cried Robin, pointing at the screen.

"That's going to be his criminal name!" hooted Kim, "if he gets sent down his fellow inmates are going to call him '_The Beard'!"_

"Now, I will admit," Robin began, "that I had a stubble phase at one point, not so long ago," he rubbed his now clean-shaven chin, "but I never went for the full beard and now I am very glad about that."

They watched as the first ad break came on and a caption saying _Dispatches is sponsored by Gillette_ appeared on the screen.

"And that's another thing," Robin began, "all this bloody publicity – I am so sick of dealing with razor riots!"

"With what?" frowned Kim.

"They keep asking for the dogs," Robin explained, "every time Evan's on the news supermarkets and chemists see a sharp rise in the sales of razors." He paused. "No pun intended. Anyway, sometimes if they sell out the beardy men get a bit violent. We've had to deal with three razor riots since the trailers for Dispatches came on alone. It's worse than when the most popular toy sells out at Christmas!"

"We have a lot of beardy men in custody at the moment," Kelly added.

Kelly had been through some difficult times since the events on the roof and the aftermath. The merest mention of what had occurred sent her into a panic, or made her change the subject very quickly. Robin understood it had been a traumatic time for her, as it had for all of them, and that there were good reasons why she might not feel able to confront it yet but there seemed to be something deeper at work. Something she didn't seem ready to share yet. She seemed especially awkward around Kim and had tried several times to get out of the meal but conceded in the end when it became clear Robin would just keep rescheduling until they could all make it.

Robin tried to ignore the constant advertisements from razors during the ad break as an ad for _Wilkinson Sword Quattro_ razors came on.

"Hope the pizza's OK," he said.

"Excellent," mumbled Kim, her mouth full.

Robin was glad of the opportunity to cook for someone. That was something he really missed and something that he always held as a treasured memory from their strange time 'on the run'. He had to admit that the whole thing had helped him to come alive in a way that he never had before. It was as though the constant adrenaline rush and the need to keep moving had given him a massive kick up the backside. He still missed Simon with every beat of his heart but he knew now that he couldn't put his own life on hold. He had to make the most of however long he had before they were reunited. The fragile nature of life had never been drilled in so deeply to him as it had through their ordeal and he had found a strength he'd never known was there.

The programme came back on and the annoying woman began to waffle again.

"…_Evan White took his goddaughter home from hospital just one month after she awoke. This behaviour seemed strange but with his legal standing doctors were reluctant to question him…"_

"I think we should make a toast," Robin said quite suddenly.

"Anything to avoid listening to her talking about Evan 'The Beard' White," teased Kim.

Robin lifted his glass of Pepsi while the others lifted their wine.

"To the soon-to-be Detective Constable on my left," he said, "and the Police Inspector on my right. Both well deserved."

"And to the doggy big-wig in the middle," Kim teased.

"Or Chief Inspector, as we have to call him at work," Kelly added.

They clinked glassed, drank and turned their attention back to their pizza for a little while. They ate in silence for some time until the sound of the woman waffling about Evan began to put them off their food.

"_And it was when Evan took the unnecessary and cruel decision to attempt to get his goddaughter sectioned that she found herself left with no choice but to run from his home and seek shelter with a friend, Police Inspector Robin Thomas."_

"_Chief Inspector," _Robin corrected loudly, "and it's Shoebury-Thomas. Get your facts straight, woman!"

"Do we know that woman's name?" asked Kim, "so we can send her some 'constructive criticism'?"

"I know your definition of constructive criticism, Kim, and it'll end up landing on my desk as harassment!" teased Robin.

"I'll look her up online later," said Kelly.

"Oh, don't encourage her!" begged Robin.

"…_It was while on the run with Robin that his own mental health came onto question…"_

"Oh _shi-i-i-i-i-it,"_ groaned Robin, head in hands, "I know what's coming up next."

Sure enough footage of him asking several tattooists whether they would be willing to tattoo his police dogs soon appeared. As though it wasn't bad enough by itself, Kim decided to add some sound effects for the concept, starting with the sound of a tattoo needle whirring away, followed a moment later by an impression of a dog howling.

"Thank you, Kim, thank you so much for that!" Robin folded his arms as both Kim and Kelly giggled.

"They thought you were barking mad," Kim hooted.

"I see your wine is starting to take effect," commented Robin and Kim pulled a face.

They finished eating their pizzas quietly, paying attention on and off to the exposé of the shamed beard model.

"Of course, the real crime in all of this is that Layton got about three minutes of air time and he'd the one that fired the bullet," said Robin.

As the programme finished and the plates were emptied Kim leaned back and rubbed her stomach.

"I'm totally stuffed," she groaned "even the beardy one couldn't spoil my appetite."

"It was really great, Robin, thanks," Kelly said, a little quietly.

A stranger and awkward silence fell as then credits for Dispatches rose, alongside the sound effect of an electric razor whirring away. Robin had a strange sense that Kelly was about to make her excused to leave. It was weird – it was a sixth-sense he'd always seemed to have – whether on the phone or in person. He always knew when someone was about to end a call or leave a situation.

"You're not going to go are you, Kelly?" he asked.

"Oh no, don't eat and run," said Kim who was keen to get to know her better.

Kelly looked a little awkward.

"I'm sorry, guys," she said, "early start in the morning. I need to get home."

Kim cleared her throat.

"Before you go," she began, "I'd like to make another toast."

"Oh, hang on," Robin lifted the wine bottle and topped up Kim and Kelly's glasses then lifted a big bottle of Pepsi to top up his own but he accidentally squeezed it and Pepsi shot out from the bottle over the table and down his arm. "Shit!" he cried, settling the bottle down and quickly mopping up the mess with napkins. As he wiped his arm and tried to get rid of the stickiness his face grew horrified. "Oh _no."_

"What? What's wrong?" asked Kim.

"Another bloody watch," Robin groaned, "It's only as cheap one but I just got it this morning." He shook his head. "I knew I should have bought as bloody waterproof one!"

"God, Rob, how many is that now?" cried Kim, "three? Four?"

"Too many," Robin mumbled. He knew he was prone to silly accidents but it was getting ridiculous now.

As he finished cleaning up the mess and finally topped up his glass Kim raised hers and began,

"I'd usually save this toast for Christmas, but I feel like it's just as appropriate today." She looked from Robin to Kelly. "To absent friends."

"Absent friends," they chorused, raising their own glasses. They clinked in the air and all sipped their drinks before Robin said quietly,

"I really wish she was here."

Kim didn't need to ask who he meant.

"Me too," she said quietly.

Silence fell again for several moments, which was only broken by the scraping of the chair as Kelly got to her feet. She looked from Robin to Kim a little guiltily and said,

"I'd better get going before it gets late. But I've really enjoyed this," she glanced at the TV. "Despite the entertainment."

Robin got to his feet.

"I'll see you out," he said.

"Thanks," said Kelly. She looked back a little awkwardly. "Night, Kim."

"Bye, Kelly," Kim said with a wave and a smile.

She sipped her wine as she waited for Robin to return. She felt a little strange, almost adrift, when she wasn't with him now. It was like a connection to her past. Although she and Robin had barely even passed each other in the corridor in 1995 just knowing the connection was there gave her a tangible link to her time in that world.

She glanced up as Robin arrived back looking somewhat tired. He scratched his head and exhaled loudly.

"You look knackered," Kim commented.

"Oh, bloody razor riot today," he commented, "got down there with the dogs, one of them went rogue, saw a cardboard cut-out of a bloke shaving and ran off with it. Three streets I chased the damn thing down. In the end the dog dropped it and went after an actual man who was shaving instead."

Kim giggled. She got to her feet, grasped her wine and took a seat on the couch as Robin sat beside her.

"Thanks for tonight," she said.

"My pleasure," said Robin, "thanks for the tattoo."

Kim smiled.

"I really didn't think you had it in you," she said.

"Hey, who knew?" said Robin, "next, I think I'll try getting something pierced."

"How about your brain?" Kim teased.

"How about your arse?" Robin countered.

"All your rebuttals involve arses," she remarked.

For an hour they talked and laughed, just like friends who had known each other for years. It was the way they always felt when they were together. For Kim it was like getting to know the other half of a pair of which she's bonded so well with the first 'half' so many years before while for Robin it was not just a link with both Simon and Alex but a new and exciting kind of friendship with a person who struggled as much as he did to form that kind of bond.

By the time she went home they were both exhausted from laughing and Robin decided to throw caution to the wind by leaving the washing up until the next day.

"You scoundrel!" Kim teased as she headed out of the door, "you watch, next thing you know you'll be on the news again. Robin Thomas, wanted for not washing his dishes!"

"That's Robin Shoebury-Thomas," Robin reminded her.

Kim gave him a fond smile.

"How could I forget?" she said.

They hugged and waved their goodbyes, then Robin closed the door and gave a hefty sigh. It was always the same when it got to the end of the day. No matter what he filled up his time with he was always left to head to bed alone.

He walked slowly through the flat and back to the lounge; the remains of the meal were left on the table, the telly still playing in the background. On the table was one soggy, sticky and no-longer functioning watch. He sighed and shook his head. Maybe it was time to give up trying to work out whereabouts he was in the day. He could rebel against the laws of the universe.

He flicked off the TV and decided to leave the plates exactly where they were. He lifted his glass and finished off the last mouthful of Pepsi before heading to the kitchen and filling a glass with water.

It was strange, but some things just didn't change. Same old bed time routine. Sometimes he accidentally took an extra glass of water to bed, forgetting Simon wouldn't be there to drink it. He slowly made his way to the bedroom and changed into his pyjamas. The bed was cold, ever single night it froze him as he climbed in by himself.

He set the alarm, settled down and closed his eyes. Despite the masses of thoughts going round in his head the hectic day was sure to permit him a good night sleep. However, before he could drift away there was a click and an almighty blaring from the radio.

"What the _fuck?"_ Robin cried, his heart racing so fast it felt like the heart of a scared baby bird held in the palm of a hand.

He scrambled upright, reached out and tried flicking the switch back and forth on the radio but it was already in the off position so he didn't know what he was supposed to do, he tried to turn the volume down but nothing changed. Just as he was starting to grow panicky and wondering what he was supposed to do before the neighbours appeared at the door to complain the static and unclear buzzing of the radio cleared and a song began to play. It was festive and Christmassy and only served to confuse him more. His face wrinkled up in shock as the ridiculous nature of hearing a Christmas song at the end of March caused him to wonder if he was even awake or if this was a very strange dream.

_#...Once again as in olden days_

_Happy golden days of yore_

_Faithful friends who were near to us_

_Will be dear to us once more…#_

Robin froze. He knew that song. As miserable as it was it was one of his Christmas favourites, but somehow he'd never really listened to the words before. Suddenly they seemed to develop a new meaning to him. He felt his eyes closing and his heart jumping to his throat as he swallowed. He had the strangest feeling. It didn't make sense. But it was there, in the back of him mind – and more than that, it was in his heart. It was the strangest feeling but it was almost as though he felt incredibly close to Simon at that moment. Almost as though it was a message or an echo from him. He could practically catch his scent in the air.

_#...Someday soon, we all will be together_

_If the Fates allow_

_Until then, we'll have to muddle through somehow_

_So have yourself a merry little Christmas now…#_

Robin found his eyes closing tightly and a tear began to roll down his cheek. He felt like an idiot for thinking this way but it seemed like such a message. A deliberate statement from him, right to his heart. He found himself shaking just a little. It was the closest he'd felt to him since the car crash.

He almost felt Simon's heart aching for him,

"Oh God, Simon," he whispered, "I…" he swallowed and shook his head a little, _"miss you too."_

His voice was broken with tears and emotion as the radio fizzled and died to silence. He trembled and shook as he wrapped himself up in the duvet and tried hard to make sense of what had just occurred. It seemed impossible; it seemed bloody out of the question. But something told him that as strange as it might seem, worlds collided for just the merest moment.

His eyes closed and he drifted onto a deep sleep eventually. His sleep was dreamless and calm, wrapped in a blanket of protection from the knowledge that Simon had almost crossed his path once again. As long as those moments kept coming he felt for sure that one day they would find themselves together again. The wait was torture. It was agony inside. But he would keep holding on because he knew they'd be reunited one day. It was his destiny.

And destiny was something that just couldn't be fought.

~xXx~

Beep.

His eyes opened just a crack. The stark white hospital lights forced them closed again and a wave of distant voices seemed to confuse him for a while.

Beep.

The monitor sounded again. So his hearing was working alright, at least.

"_Arthur? Arthur, welcome back."_

He tried to open his eyes one more time and against the bright light the shadow of a nurse came into view. She was pretty and kindly, a warm smile greeting his vision as it began to clear.

"_Don't try to move or speak, it's OK – you need to take things very easy. Doctor -?"_

The nurse took a step back as a tall female doctor came into view.

"_Arthur? Arthur, you're in hospital. I'm Doctor Grange. Now, listen to be carefully. You had an accident. You crashed your car. You've been unconscious for a few weeks and it's going to take a while for you to get back your full range of movement and motor function. Please be patient, all will happen in good time. We're taking good care of you and we're going to check you over now, OK?"_

He lay there, powerless to do a thing as the doctor began to prod and poke him. He blinked. That was about all he could do. He tried to turn his head a little and managed to see a little more to one side. There was a doorway; outside he could just make out uniforms. Uniforms of a couple of… what were they? Officers? Guards? He couldn't be sure.

He tried to speak, despite the doctor's instructions. His lips moved - they seemed awfully dry, and he tried to spark his vocal chords into a response.

"_What's that Arthur?" _

His voice was weak, as though it was out of practice but he just about made himself heard.

"Date?" he whispered.

The doctor glanced around.

"_The date?"_ she asked, _"It's the twenty eighth of March."_

He licked his lips again.

"Year?" he whispered.

The doctor laughed.

"_It's alright, Arthur, you're still in two thousand and eleven. You weren't asleep that long."_

Those were the only words he said as he closed his eyes and allowed the doctor to carry on with her prodding and poking. His head was awash with thoughts as he tried to make sense out of what was going on.

_2011? How did I get to 2011?_

It seemed impossible. It seemed like a dream. But yet here he was, in another time, another year, another body.

"_You're doing well, Arthur. I'll let you get some sleep now."_

There were footsteps as the doctor left the room. Arthur? Who the fucking hell was Arthur?

When it came down to it, it didn't really matter. All that mattered was that he was back, somehow. The other side of the line. It seemed impossible, but he'd learnt that very little actually was, when it came down to it.

As he felt sleep taking him over again the full impact of his situation dawned upon him. Here he was, back amongst the land of the living. A little list came to mind of people he'd like to pay a visit to. People who would be _oh so glad_ to see him again, he was sure.

And now he could do just that. The chance he never thought he would have. Back on the other side of the line, the world was once again his oyster and this time nothing and no one was going to stop him from exacting the revenge he desired on those who deserved it.

As Jim Keats fell asleep, he thought about the exhilarating day he had ahead tomorrow. And the day after that. And all the days to come.

Revenge was a dish best served in the land of the living.

**~x~ To Be Continued ~x~**

~xXx~

**Author's Note: I barely know what to say. This was… an experience! I look at the word count and I just can't believe it And then I look at the faded keys on my (new!) laptop and I think, hmm, maybe I did write that much after all! And if you think I'm kidding I'll take a picture! Good thing I can touchtype, the N, M, H and L keys are totally blank!**

**Thank you to everyone who has followed on this epic journey. I know staying with a fic this long takes some doing, so I really appreciate it. I hope that you've enjoyed the ride as much as I've enjoyed creating it. And to think I didn't think writing Whispering was going to suck me in as much as writing Strangers did! This story is the thing that's kept me sane through a dark and anxious few weeks, hence the many, many updates to distract me. To everyone who put this story on alert or favourite, I send so many thanks. I'm really grateful for your support x**

**A huge, extra-special thank you to everyone who has reviewed this fic as it's gone along, with special thanks to Oceancounty, Fenella Church, Sillygenie, Sash queen of the Jungle, MorganaNK, rantandrumour, Anagram-Analogy and anyone I have forgotten, as well as people outside of FFnet who have been so supportive and inspirational; of course to dear Jen, and to Charlotte and Noemi – thank you! **

**You might have noticed I was a bit mean. No nice neat endings here, not my style! :D There are going to be two sequels – two separate fics, one following Keats in 2011 and the other set in 1996 which sees the return of one of the original A2A characters. The 2011 sequel is going to be very dark, and will probably end up as an M rating, while the 1996 sequel will be lighter and - towards the end - fairly daft as well. I will be starting both in the next few days, and hope to update each a couple of times a week. Unfortunately I think, as my bloody health declines, my two-chapters-a-day updates are over, but my brain is working overtime on plotting so you never know!**

**I've just had to carry this series on a bit longer. I've become very attached to Simon, Robin and Kim, and there is actually a massive end game in all of this. And no, I'm not telling you what it is! :D **

**Things I have given myself a phobia of as a result of this story include Andrew Ridgeley, sprouts, jumpers and clams. Oh, and I can't watch Come Dine With Me any more without getting an urge to do an oral Ridgeley either!**

**And finally, 400,000+ words – stick that up your arse, Cucumber! Or, stick a cucumber up your arse, whichever is most appropriate.**


End file.
